And I, I Will Poison The Skies
by AlexTuesday
Summary: In which some parents don't die, a few too many bad decisions are made, the Wayne name means nothing but favours mean everything, and any court of royalty worth its salt needs a jester. Batman/Joker - Batjokes - SLASH/Multi-Pairing - gangster!AU - Updates Fridays
1. PART 1:1 : The Fall

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **I've been gone so long. Sorry. I've been having a lot of trouble writing. And doing other things. More info later.

If you don't know him, Thomas Wayne Jr. is a character in both older comics and in Earth-3 (alternate DC universe). He was the Owlman, and Bruce's older brother. In older comics, his backstory was that he was mentally ill and lived in a hospital, where Bruce never knew about him, and only shows up later when someone brainwashes him. He appears in this story because I'm having tons of Tommy feels and there isn't enough fanfiction with him in it.

* * *

**PART 1.1: **The Fall

_Stars are only visible in the darkness,_  
_Fear is ever changing and evolving,_  
_And I, I can poison the skies,_  
_And I, I feel so alive._

~ Battle Cry, Imagine Dragons

* * *

When Bruce was three, his family was in a car accident.

They'd been driving back to the manor after an evening in town. His mother had been dressed in silk and his father next to her was cupping a hand on her knee, a warm grin on his face. His brother, Tommy, was sitting on the other side of their mother - next to Bruce - playing an imaginary game with the plush owl doll he'd received as a christmas gift from some relatives the year before.

Bruce does not remember any of this. He doesn't remember looking out the window, leaning up against the glass at the headlights that had caught his eye. He doesn't remember reaching for Tommy's arm, securing the six year old's attention before anyone else's.

He doesn't know that his parents aren't looking, that none of them are wearing seat belts. That the driver glances at a sign post in the opposite direction just as the other car cuts out of an unlit side street.

He doesn't remember this - but Tommy does. Tommy glanced over his baby brother's head - saw the car - and _moved_, only a second or two before the impact. If Bruce remembers anything, years later, it's the screech of metal, the sound of screaming, and the heavy-but-soft force of his brother slamming his body down on top of him.

He would not remember the sound of the driver's head smacking the wheel hard enough to kill. He would not remember his mother's voice yelling for her boys, or his father yelling for Thomas to keep his eyes open. The sound of shattering glass, or the exact moment that Tommy's body goes limp on top of him, are also not there.

There is one other thing he remembers - even after all the other images had faded from childish memory. It's the sound and smell of dripping blood, sliding down the sides of Tommy's neck, and hitting Bruce's face; like raindrops.

He never forgets the memory of his brother dying.

* * *

When Bruce was four, his mother rushed into the preschool he attended and pulled him out early. There were tears in her eyes, and she hiccupped wetly when he squeezed her fingers. They drove in the small city car - the new one, after the old one had been destroyed - to the hospital Bruce's father worked in.

The smell of bleach and sound of nurses rushing past sent shivers through his body, the memory of chaos and wheeled beds and _blood_ still too strong, but he'd been here before that night, and he's been here since.

There is the flash of hallways, as Martha runs past and then they're _there_.

In Tommy's room.

Bruce has been in here many times over, sitting beside the bed as his mother read stories to the sleeping face of his big brother. Bruce had watched as slowly, his face grew pale and his arms thinner on the sheets. The sight of Tommy's closed eyes that haunted his nightmares for the past eight months is one he expects to when his mother places him at the foot of the medical bed, and leans down to kiss her eldest's cheek.

Except Tommy's eyes aren't closed; they're _blue_, a bit duller, and plenty confused, but opened and focused weakly on their father's face.

Tommy spots him at the end of his bed, and his face lights up, a grin with two missing teeth spreading wide. His hands reaching for his baby brother, and Bruce can't stand it, launching forward and howling tears into Tommy's hair.

"_Missed you_." He chokes, and he can feel Tommy's smile on his neck.

* * *

Thomas Wanye, Jr. is Bruce's older brother. He was born about three years before Bruce, and had always taken seriously the duties of being the elder sibling. Since he was strong enough to lift the howling infant, Tommy had trotted around the manor and its ground with his baby brother in his arms, often struggling to lift the child and his mess of wrappings. When this proved too difficult, Tommy often replaced the awkward hold with a basket, putting baby, blankets, toys and books all in one and relying on the enthusiastic babbling of his navigator to avoid taking a fall down any stairs.

While Tommy was nice enough in his own way, it quickly became apparent that Bruce was his only true love. Tommy squirmed and downright howled when subjected to the groping fingers and hands of visiting friends and family. He treated each capture and hug like it was dangerous, kicking about and fleeing quickly. It was unanimously agreed that _Bath Time_ was torture for everyone involved; it was even bad enough that a stray visitor once called the police at the distant sounds of Tommy's tortured screams. Unfortunately, neither the two men in uniform who turned up at the door were able to do anything about _Bath Time_ either.

When Bruce was there, however, Tommy morphed into a sugar-sweet teddy bear, giving up spoonful after spoonful of ice cream and mouthfuls of pancakes every time Bruce turned his baby blues to the older son. All toys that Tommy owned became Bruce's. If Bruce wanted to touch or look, all he had to do was point, and Tommy was lifting him up above his head, struggling to get into range whatever the baby's sights held. _Bath Time_ was only possible after Martha introduced the cooing angel to the art of sitting still and letting adults scrub dust and dirt from his dark curls.

Tommy, it turned out, _loved_ taking a bath - as long as Bruce was there. Baths were the best, if Bruce was making screeching noises and splashing water into Tommy's eyes while throwing around various plastic toys. _Everything_ was the best if Bruce was there. The only time decent photographs emerged of the Wayne family, was after Tommy was allowed to hold Bruce, and all four could attend parties in relevant calm after allowing Tommy to introduce Bruce to each and every person in attendance.

At four months, Bruce started making "tttt" noises every time Tommy was not looking directly at him. "Toe" followed at six, and "Toe-me" at seven and a half. By month nine, "Toooooommmmmmyyy" was Bruce's very first word in the morning, and his most frequent throughout the day, being shrieked even if Tommy's ear was only a few inches from Bruce's mouth.

It became apparent shortly after Bruce's first birthday, that the toddler was a lot smarter then he should have been. By age one, his vocabulary had well over a hundred words, and he'd mastered walking at six months, skipping crawling entirely. His balance was excellent and he'd already begun to learn to count, mouthing words and sounds as he moved objects around to directions. The deep fascination with everything had not left, only growing larger as each new thing Bruce was presented was touched, smelled, shaken for a sound and tasted with deep, thoughtful looks at each discovery. His memory was amazing, allowing him to regonize people he'd only been introduced to once.

Little by little, attention shifted to Bruce, the sweet little angel, who smiled at strangers and laughed at kisses and hugs. He charmed even the most spiteful into agreeing; the youngest Wayne was the cutest thing since kittens.

Tommy was rarely anyone's favourite. Before Bruce had come along, all his playtimes had been spent alone, rejecting outside influence and playmates. He was not necessarily rude, or unhappy, but it was always agreed that Thomas Jr. was a boy who liked to be alone.

Bruce was Tommy's light in the world. Tommy might not have been anyone's favourite, but he was certainly Bruce's. Bruce could see no wrong in Tommy's stutters or freezing glances at strangers. When others remarked that Tommy was such a _strange little_ boy, Bruce could only smile at his big brother, and see him smile back, with the whole world and all the love in it reflected in his blue eyes.

In the eyes of Bruce, Tommy could do no wrong. Even as his mind raced ahead in genius anticipation, leaving his older brother in the dust as he inhaled math and sciences, read faster, wrote longer, became _better_, Bruce loved his brother all the stronger, for sticking by when other kids teased the youngest Wayne for being too smart, for playing with him and ignoring children his own age. For _understanding_ Bruce, when everyone else just treated him like a marvel, the little _genius_.

Tommy could do no wrong, even when he got very, very wrong.

* * *

Tommy turned seven in a hospital. Being in a coma for eight months had weakened everything from his muscles to his memory; he could barely coordinate well enough to feed himself.

It was not the hospital he'd laid in for so long. This one was private, expensive, and full of people recovering from various diseases and situations similar to Tommy's.

All in all, he had a nice, quiet room with a small view of the hospital's gardens. The room was bright, but rather impersonal, with flowered wallpaper, pastel colours, and only a few things that were Tommy's. Besides some clothes and a handful of doctor-approved books, there was only a picture of all four Waynes - taken shortly before the accident - and the plush owl toy, singed and stained after the crash.

It didn't feel at all like Tommy, but in some way, that fit the situation rather well.

For there was something wrong with Tommy.

It had been one thing, when he'd woken up, slowly staying conscious for longer and longer each day, learning how to move again and shape his tongue in patterns like words, it had been a challenge with an end in sight.

But time revealed something. He was _different_ then before. Something had become twisted inside of him, something that lingered around the edge of his eyes. Where once he had squirmed at the attention of others, now he bared his teeth and _clawed_. He screamed at foreign contact, he snarled and kicked and _hated_, with something that was burning and hot, and almost cruel.

As time edged on, Thomas and Martha tried desperately to bring their son home, only to see him turn on the staff, lock himself in various rooms and refuse even his own parents' touch. Tommy travelled from doctor to doctor, as they tried to unweave what had caused the change.

The only person that Tommy softened around was Bruce. That darkness that curled so possessively around his innards would recede as Bruce smiled at him, held his hand and told him about his day.

Not a week went by when Bruce did not visit his brother at the hospital. It was the only time the nurses could breath a sigh of relief, as Bruce tugged Tommy out into the yard, to compare leaves off the trees to his carry-around book on American Flora or capture flies to stick in spider webs. It was like removing a boiling pot from hot water, the heaving, shimmering mess disappearing as if it never existed, only smoking slightly if others choose to interfere, or burning wayward fingers.

At first, fuelled by dangerous words from doctors or professionals, Thomas and Martha wouldn't let the two boys out of their sight, convinced that the slightly incident would send Tommy against his baby brother. But as time went on, slowly, they relaxed, trusting that Bruce, if nobody else, would take care of their eldest.

Tommy's birthday was a quiet affair, made only possible because Bruce had baked the cake himself, and spent the entire evening informing his brother about the chemical makeup of sugar and how the dough had changed every five minutes.

It was obvious that the newly minted seven year old was not keen on spending so long in what he widely considered to be a strange place. He took some persuading to open his gifts at all and mostly sat within a few inches of Bruce, slowly eating cake like taking his attention off watching the room would become dangerous.

That night it rained, thunder rumbling somewhere over the New Jersey shoreline. Every noise or flash of light would send shivers coursing through Tommy's spine, but even under careful watch, nobody seems to notice, his parents slowly sinking into a state of pleasant exhaustion as the two brothers played in various abandoned rooms, the staff having been given the night off.

Eventually, Tommy found himself in Bruce's room, sitting on the rug while Bruce informed him of a brave war being prevented by the two heroes of the night; the whole game being played out using Bruce's vast collection of ceramic and glass figures, plastic toys, tin soldiers from the attic and rather impressive set of stuffed animals.

Bruce was midway through rescuing the kidnapped princess from Tommy's dragon, which had either just randomly appeared or had secretly been behind the whole kingdom's economic collapse - it was a bit difficult to follow, sometimes - when there was a thunderous gust of wind, the likes of which had only been distantly howling at the window all evening, the lights went out and Bruce's window shattered.

There was a delay, as Tommy's heart leapt into a beat seemingly twice as fast, and Bruce seemed stunned, more then anything. Then, the rain spat inwards, lightning crackling in the distance, and Bruce _screamed_.

A haze took over Tommy, some part of him that remembered only screams of pain and flashing headlights, and he was moving before he had time to think, grabbing Bruce's sweater and dragging him away, away from the broken glass and the nightmares and _death_.

It was instinct, that made him curl his younger brother underneath him, instinct that wrapped his body around the small, trembling back, locked his hands over Bruce's neck, because there was still scars on the Tommy's head that _itched_. Instinct that pushed down, kept Bruce still and safe and _he wanted to hurt someone_.

There was hands that were trying to pull him off Bruce, hands that he tried to bite at, as he held fast. Hands that flipped him over and tried to break his lock.

Bruce was howling, words lost to whatever had crept up in his head, clinging desperately to his brother as he tried to wipe the water off his face with whatever he could get at.

Someone, distantly, was yelling, and it probably wasn't Bruce, because Tommy's whole world had narrowed down to his brother. He couldn't hear the wind, or the rain, his parents' voices lost to him as they tried to pry the two apart.

The fear was all-consuming, some distant part of Thomas that whispered _Bruce is in danger, Bruce is scared, you can save him_. You can _save_ him. _You've done it before._

He wasn't aware, up until that point, that the doctors in charge of his case had given his father a set of sedatives. The world was slowly rattling itself apart in a clash of wind and splintering metal, and the tiny pinprick of the needle was lost to Bruce's cries.

He did notice, when his eyes started to flutter, as his arms became weak, and began to loosen around his brother.

The very last thing he heard, before his head hit the bedroom floor, was Bruce's voice, laced with more fear then he'd ever heard in anyone's voice, yelling or screaming or whispering one small phrase, over and over.

"_He's dying again_."

* * *

Bruce had a fear of water on this face. Tommy's mother tells him this two weeks later. He hadn't liked showers or baths much following the accident, but everyone had just chalked that up to being without his brother.

Bruce - who was the perfect one - could not possibly be _scared_ of what had happened. He only cried because Tommy was sick. He didn't wake screaming in the night, or refuse to go in cars or _anything_ that would have tipped someone off to something being _wrong_.

But Bruce was scared of water on his face. He was scared of dripping rain trailing down his neck and his cheeks. He was scared of _blood_ running down his head, dripping down from Tommy's wounds.

All the nightmares would fade with time, but this one, it _stayed_, so cruel and twisting. The reason that Tommy had to go to the hospital, that he'd become comatose, that he'd _changed_. All because he'd taken the glass and impact instead of Bruce, for Bruce.

And then, with the lightning - _like headlights flashing_ - and the rain hitting his face - _like Tommy's blood_ - and the glass shattering - _like all the windows at once_ - Bruce could not _stand_ it. It'd come back, too close for him to understand it was something different.

His mother says, she understands that Tommy was helping now. That laying down on top of Bruce had calmed him - because Tommy had saved Bruce once and he could do it again - and that Tommy had not been the one to cause his brother's screams. Tommy had not _hurt_ Bruce; he'd been trying to save him.

Except, with some borrowed sedatives, instead of being the hero, Tommy had slept, not waking when Bruce had shook and shook, seemingly dead, seemingly asleep without any hope of waking up, and it had made it _so much worse_.

It had never occurred to Tommy before this, that Bruce was even _capable_ of hatred. But Tommy could see it, when they let his family back into the hospital. He could see it in Bruce's face, biting harsh and bottomless.

As far as four-year-old Bruce was concerned, his parents had taken away his hero and killed his brother. It didn't matter that Tommy was fine - or as fine as he could be - or that Tommy hadn't even really _saved_ him.

Bruce didn't shake ideas. He might have been smart beyond his years, but it didn't change the fact that he was a _child_.

"We know you were trying to help." His mother said. "Sweetie, we just worry sometimes." It was possible she looked sad, but it was hard for Tommy to tell.

He only had eyes for Bruce, and Bruce was _angry_.

* * *

When Bruce was five, his parents received a call one evening, shortly after dinner.

It would take a long time to forget the look on horror on his father's face, his calm manner so shattered it was like a broken glass.

He heard his mother cry something, when both of them talked out in the hall, and when they came back in, gathering up their youngest like he was still a baby, he could see tears in both their eyes.

"Bruce," Martha's voice sounded choked. "something's wrong at the hospital. Some nice policemen are going to come over and drive us down there, okay?"

Bruce nodded, fear spiking hotly in his feet. His parents didn't put him down, even as they carried him around to grab coats and bags. They were ready in the entrance hall by the time two black and white cars pulled up near the front door, lights sending splays of light off the darkened garden, though the sirens were off.

They were ushered in, and they took off quickly. The officers didn't give anything away - saying only basic answers to Thomas and Martha's basic questions. It left Bruce scratching for more, wanting to _know_.

Hospital? His father's hospital? Tommy's hospital? What had his mother meant by _something's wrong_?

Bruce kept the tears back, as they drove through the Palisades, across the Trigate bridge and into the heart of Uptown. Except, instead of taking the route to either hospital, the police turned down an unfamiliar street, and pulled up in front of a GCPD building.

The fear was becoming so strong it threatened to send him toppling from his father's arms. Were they going to the station to see a _body_? Was somebody dead, or in trouble?

But such a thing did not happen. Instead, they were ushered into a separate room, and Bruce's parents explained, in careful, tear-thick tones, that there was an _incident_ at Tommy's hospital.

The television was on in one corner. The reporter on screen was talking about a _hostage situation_ at the _St. Angus Institution for_-

Bruce suddenly found it very difficult to breath. In fact, it had suddenly become impossible. He could dimly hear his mother say something along the lines of _it'll be aright_, but it didn't really sound like the truth.

None of the Waynes could later give a clear description of what happened that night, but there was a rather accurate article in the Gotham Times a week after that gave the details, and that was always how the family retold the story.

There was a man - Leroy Hobbs, age 23, high on at least two illegal substances - who'd broken into the hospital after hours, gotten all the way up into the children's ward, and found the room labeled _THOMAS G. WAYNE, JR._ There, he'd slammed Tommy against the wall, dazing him but not knocking him out, and held a knife to the child's throat as he screamed to the nurse to get everyone else out, and made sure the rich brat's parents knew he was here.

Bruce remembered each statistic perfectly, year after year, after it was all over. Bruce was 5 years old. Tommy was 7 years old. Leroy Hobbs was 23 years old. Hobbs was $34,500 into debt with the Italian mafia. Hobbs asked for 1 million and a free pass out of the building, in exchange for Tommy's life. The Waynes had learned of the situation at 7:15 pm, about 20 minutes after everything had started. They got to the station at 7:40 pm.

Tommy broke free at 7:55 pm and was found at 8:20 pm.

At least, this'll be the story the papers will print. That is not necessarily the truth.

Tommy, whose memories of the night are the clearest, headache aside, will lean over, years later and whisper into Bruce's ear, that he bit down on the biggest, bluest vein standing out on Hobbs' wrist and ripped it clean away, as the man had waved the knife in his face.

The police report - and the newspaper article - will report that Tommy struggled, and bit down on his captor, while trying to escape. Tommy will be stunned, lost and confused, and will take 30 or so minutes to stumble about, and be found by a team storming the building. They will say that the drugs Hobbs was on caused him to tear his veins out. They'll say that it wasn't Tommy's fault. That Hobbs was dead before they got there. That there was nothing they could do.

But Bruce will always hear Tommy's words, whispered in his ear where nobody else could hear.

"_I watched him die._" The boy says, breath quick with some foreign eagerness. "_He was dead before I left the room. _I killed him."

On that night, however, Bruce knows none of these things. Instead, he watches, on the television, as bit by bit, stories are unraveled. There is a phone call, where his father speaks in a shaking voice and his mother stands beside him, barking quiet words that get listened too all so quickly. There's officers going back and forth as they try to decide on the best course of action. People cry, people yell. There's confusion and too much running out and part of Bruce goes numb, out of space, out of time.

It had never occurred to the younger son, that maybe, one day, his brother would not be there.

Perhaps it's because he's young, or because he's scared, but he barely notices any time passing - there's just a massive expanse of time where nothing happens, then his parents are hiccupping sobs of relief, they're back in the car, and finally driving to the hospital.

Tommy's standing near an ambulance, a shock blanket wrapped around his thin shoulders, an expression that's halfway between angry and stunned caught on his face. The paramedics and police around him are eyeing him warily, like perhaps the boy had tried something when they'd attempted to comfort him.

Tommy stiffens when his parents get out of the car, something almost like _fear_ in his eyes for a second - like he knows he's about to get in trouble - and then Bruce is out, running across the pavement and squeezing his brother in the tightest hug he can manage.

If Bruce had cared to look, he would have seen everyone tense up at his sudden leap. He would have seen people move to grab them both, remove the young boy from the violent one's clutches, and his mother wave them off, before marching over to chew out the manager on duty.

Tommy runs a shaking hand through Bruce's hairs, mumbles something that sounds like "it's over" - because at least Tommy is smart enough not to lie and say it's all right.

"Don't go away." Bruce mumbles into his jacket. "_Please_ never go away."

Tommy's fingers tip up Bruce's chin, so the two can look into each other's eyes.

"Never." Tommy promises, and there are spots of blood on his teeth.

* * *

Thomas Wayne Sr. had been born rich, loved and _safe_, in a time where safety was not necessary secured.

His father - Leonard Chase, later Leonard Wayne - had been a well-off banker from New York, meeting his mother - Angelina Wayne - who was one of two heiresses to the Wayne fortune. They'd had a calm but loving relationship, and following the second sister's suicide - Marilyn, his aunt - (a fact that Thomas Sr. was only aware of distantly, without much clarification), his mother, Angelina and her husband had become the next Waynes in residents.

Thomas knew that things were not nearly as pleasant as they'd looked growing up. He'd technically never been an only child, a fact he'd learned when he was seven, having watched his mother suffer her ninth and last miscarriage. Leonard's parents had disowned him, when he said he was to take his wife's name, and Angelina's parents had died - her mother at birth, her father to a random, work-related accident when Thomas was two.

Leonard had worked with Wayne Enterprises, up until a surprised heart attack when Thomas was seventeen. By this time, Gotham had begun its downward spiral into darkness, turning the streets against one another, as slowly but surely, crime began to take hold like a rot.

His mother had not taken her husband's death well. The days following the funeral, his acceptance into the University of Gotham's medical program, his early courtship with Julie Summers, Hannah Wright, Sarah Walters, and finally, Martha Kane were dark ones. Angelina took to drinking, refusing to leave her room for weeks at a time, and becoming more and more weak as time went on.

A small - very small, almost microscopic - part of him was grateful for the day he took Martha back to his childhood manor, only to find his mother dead in her room. Not because his last living relative - mysterious, unknown grandparents on his father's side aside - had died, but because unlike the other girls he'd loved, Martha did not fright at death, or make faces as he cries. She held him tightly, like his mother had when once upon a time, he'd suffered from nightmares.

Martha did not leave, when the going got dark.

They were married in the spring - the original plan had involved their assorted friends, but they'd changed it last minute to involve only them, some witnesses and a priest. Their friends - various med students or Martha's charity associates - spent much of their time cooing over how many children they were going to have and when, or other, equally digging topics.

Martha had a passion about her, a fire Thomas knew he couldn't match. Most people wrongly assumed that this was a regular drive - the same that drove her to help or to be kind. But Thomas could see it, shimmering beneath the surface, volatile and beating hot. Something as beautiful and dangerous as a well-crafted knife, capable of many uses and excellent at all of them, when properly applied.

_She was wasted in this way of life._ It was his most frequent thought. _She could have so much better._

But life was not kind to Martha Wayne. She grew up in dresses and sewing classes, had a better grasp of what type of spoon was to be used, how to act, how to _smile_ then most others.

Martha had grown up a doll, modelled and coloured as to be best placed on a shelf. Her marriage to Thomas was hailed as the grande finale in this plan. All they needed was the kids and for her to spend the rest of her days on Thomas's arm - rich, beautiful and silent. Kind as an afterthought, loving as a precaution.

Thomas married Martha, because he thought she was capable of anything, and he wanted to see it. He _loved_ Martha, every freckle on her cheeks and her faintest hints of muscle, growing from some ecstatic hobby she persuaded when he wasn't there. He loved her quiet moments, intelligence ticking beneath carefully pinned blond curls. He loved her anger, vicious and loud, like a thunderstorm raging unconfined.

It was not necessarily that Thomas believed Martha could do no wrong. It was more that Thomas was of a mind that it didn't _matter_.

Thomas was loyal, before he was kind, before he was anything else. He had no family, his friends were little more then colleagues. He had sworn a _vow_ to Martha, to love and cherish her until his last and final breath.

He would not forsake this oath, come hell or high water.

And Martha, devil in her eye, demon on the tip of her tongue, anger in her heart, could see it, knew it, like the taste of defeat in her throat. Thomas was bound to her, love and money and _reason_, so there for her to take.

Martha did not have a plan, she did not have a destiny. But she had a _desire_.

And this only grew, as little by little, the world burned, and her children, weakened by pain, every minute grew more in danger.

She had to do something. Something that was yet beyond thought, escaping around the edges of her head like a dream.

There would be a time, she knew, when things would _change_.

She only hoped her boys could make the jump when it happened.

* * *

The year of Bruce's sixth birthday was promptly ruined when the rather interesting specimen of mushroom he was looking at disappeared into the ground.

There was enough time for Bruce to think '_that's odd_' before the dirt beneath his feet loosened and fell away, sending him tumbling legs first into the black below.

There was a scream - probably his - and then a crack, as his ankle caught against something. The pain crashed into him almost as fast as the water did, a moment later, as he hit and vanished beneath the surface of _something_.

There was a brief moment, as he sank, when the bubbles and dirt that'd gone down with him disappeared, and he got a blurry glimpse of all the water suddenly pressing down on his lungs. Calm took over, more stunned shock then anything, but still calm.

This moment gave him the time to react, noticing the surface above his head breaking as rocks and clumps of dirt followed him down. It was enough, as the panic began to set in, to have a direction to claw at, shove towards and finally, a barrier to break through, as he sucked in a lungful of damp, but not wet air.

There was a current, something tugging at him more strongly then his stunned limbs could protest. He had enough time to see a silver of light - the hole he'd fallen down, most likely - before the river - underground, how interesting, he'd never known it was here - swept him away, down a tunnel of rock, dirt and roots. The darkness soon swallowed everything, as he went too far for the sunlight to reach.

"Think." He croaked to himself, as he struggled to keep his head above water. Talking to himself had become something of a habit, after Tommy had spent so long away. "All rivers have to come out somewhere."

The river in question choose this moment to spit him out onto a small rocky shelf.

Out of the water, Bruce lay there for a moment, taking stock of his situation in the way he would any experiment. He was cold, wet, his ankle was probably broken (oh God, what if it was going to fall off down here - his father would never find it to reattach it!) and there was no telling how far he'd traveled by now.

_Experiments were not as much fun when they involved you_. Bruce mused, before beginning to root around the dirt for some sticks to bind his leg. He wasn't entirely sure how to bind something, but he was aware of the principles of the matter.

Somewhere, there was a squeak.

Bruce's first thought was _mouse_. Tommy had caught a mouse once, a couple of months ago when he'd been visiting. His mother had said to let it go, because _you shouldn't hurt something that can't fight back_. Bruce didn't know how his mother had known Tommy was going to try to kill it.

The next squeak, however, came from a different direction, above Bruce. Mice were not very good at climbing, as far as Bruce knew. That was a very unlikely place for a mouse to be.

The next sound, Bruce didn't know. Later, he would identify it as a flapping noise, perhaps close to leather. Here, however, it sounded vaguely like a snap, and it was the only warning he got.

The next minute, they swarmed him.

_Bats._

Bruce had seen them flying across the manor grounds before, but they were not nearly as pleasant up close. There was hundreds of them, all rushing past and about, _screeching_ in his ears, clawing at his skin as they flew past.

It was like he was drowning all over again, drowning in cold bodies that slammed into him with nay a care. The initial shock gave way to pain soon enough - leather wings scratching his skin as they hurtled past, his ankle twisting painfully as he attempted to pull himself against a wall, against a rock, against _anything_ that could hide him.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over, his whole body quivering in cold, freezing shock as he lay in the mud. The last of the bats swarming down the river he'd been dragged through and leaving none of their kind.

Bruce gulped down lungful after lungful of damp, dirty air, tonguing dirt and what tasted suspiciously like blood. He couldn't hear anything, even the water having vanished somewhere else. He couldn't even hear his own heart.

Something _moved_ in the dark, the grackle of shifting rocks freezing his blood still in his veins.

Somewhere, there was a snarl, like a bear or a tiger from the nature television shows he favoured. Something _deep_ and dangerous, moving closer.

He stopped breathing, everything stilling down into nothing. He couldn't see anything in the dark, but he could hear it; massive and slow, something that scraped and dragged.

Bruce looked up, and there was eyes.

They were gleaming red, slotted with a thin pupil and set above a flatted, twisted snout, much like a pig's or a bat's. He wasn't sure how he could see it now, when he couldn't before, but it was clear enough to count each greasy black hair clumped across its skin.

It opened its mouth, revealing the sharpest, whitest teeth he'd ever seen, the biggest fangs so long they hung right out of its mouth. Its legs came down on either side of his head, massive ivory claws digging into the dirt, and something that looked like /wings/ raising above its body.

Bruce sucked in one large gulp of air, and began to scream.

And he screamed and screamed, until he could taste blood in his throat and suddenly, there was claws on him, ripping and _tearing_-

Only it wasn't claws, it was a flashlight into his face, and his father shushing him, wiping a hand through his dirty hair and slowly trying to carry him out.

"It'll be okay, it's over." His voice was heavy with the edges of fear, but calm was thick over top of that. He smiled at Bruce, when the boy refocused onto him.

Th sunlight hit his face like Bruce hadn't seen it in years, painful and sharp. His mother was standing back, quivering with something that could have been fear, or anger.

A large chunk of the lawn had collapsed in on itself, hollowed out and wet. There was easily a dozen people there, all looking at them.

His mother grasped his arm and squeezed it hard once he got in range.

"Oh thank God you're alright." She breathed, twisting his face to see the scratches on it. "Are you hurt? Is there anything you need, dear?"

For the first time since everything started, tears begun to well up, spilling down dirty cheeks.

"Tommy." Bruce hiccuped. "I need _Tommy_."

* * *

It was rare for Bruce and Tommy to truly be alone these days, but somehow, they managed it this time.

Following _the incident_, Tommy had been moved to a different hospital. This time, his room was decorated in more modern colours, with plenty of things that Bruce supposed children his age were suppose to like, things like race cars and pictures of planets.

Tommy sat in the middle of it with a look that said he clearly thought it was a cruel joke.

Their parents were out whispering in the hall - for once, not about their children, so much as their own fears. The doctor currently assigned to Tommy`s case was trying to calm them down.

"I think I'm scared of bats." Bruce confessed, sitting beside his brother and slowly stroking the tattered stuffed owl that had been sitting on Tommy's bed for quite some time now.

"Thats okay." Tommy muttered, swinging his long legs back and forth, thin fingers gripping the covers in that way he did when he wanted to grab onto Bruce and hold on forever, but thought it best not too, "Bats are a good thing to be scared of."

"They aren't very scary." Admitted Bruce, who had crawled downstairs the evening of his 'adventure' and spent several hours finding every bat reference he could in the Waynes' extensive library. The clinically drawn bone structures were quite far from the monsters that had attacked him below the earth's skin.

"It doesn't matter." Tommy's fingers flexed on the sheets, itching for that human contact he'd deny himself even here. "Sometimes its good to be really scared of one thing, instead of kinda scared of lots of little things." He paused again, and the tension drained his spine as Bruce leaned against his shoulder, nuzzling close like he had a hundred times before.

"Bats are a good thing to be afraid of." Tommy whispered into Bruce's hair. "You can cut them open and store all your worries inside of them, then they'll fly away, and never touch you again."

It was a very strange thing to say, but Bruce had grown up listening to Tommy's strange things. He understood.

The dimmest echo of raised voices came from the hall, and Tommy shifted in that way he did when reminded of the rest of the world.

"They're scared too." Bruce whispered back, and Tommy shivered again.

"The world's getting darker." His brother murmured back, and Bruce thought of his monster in the shadows.

* * *

Bruce entered second grade the year at age seven.

He'd spent some time in various pre-school and tutoring sessions, and had skipped grade one entirely. It was the first time he'ld been in a large school - big enough to house even teenagers.

He was the youngest in his grade, even if he was ahead of some of the students already. It was here that Bruce was introduced to the concept of cruelty.

Nobody had the gull to outright attack of a Wayne - they were at least smart enough for that - but that didn't stop them from teasing him to no end, isolating him from everyone his own age. Even the other smart kids avoided him.

But the real problem started when people slowly figured out who he was.

The private school was full of some of the highest class citizens in Gotham, making the children and parents of the community subject to most of the same gossip, and the first thing Bruce learned, was that there was a lot of gossip about his family.

It started innocently enough - a girl scooted her chair over and gave him a weird look, informing him in what she assumed to be a polite tone of voice that his family was _very_ weird and she didn't want to be around weird people.

From there, it got steadily worse - because most of the comments were directed at _Tommy_.

"Your brother's the retard, right?" Was the most popular one, sometimes accompanied with a fearful look or cruel smirk. It made his stomach turn uncomfortably, and the laughter they coupled it with was enough to make his heart twist.

He lasted two weeks, before he shoved a fist into an older boy's nose.

The stunned look of horror and pain, blood dripping down his lip already, was almost worth the comment about how they should have let his brother die, instead of living life as a freak. The painful counter punch, knocking the air right out of his lungs, felt a lot worse then his knuckles, however.

His parents were less then pleased about it.

"Two weeks?" His mother muttered, more under her breath and to herself then anything. "You got suspended after just two weeks in school?"

Bruce sniffed, smelling the dried blood that had crusted around his own nose. "He was saying mean things about Tommy."

"Bruce…" His father said awkwardly, giving him a sad look over the ice pack he was holding down. "Lots of people dont understand these things. They aren't _trying_ to be mean… they're just repeating what other people have said."

"Well… I don't like them!" Tears were welling up in his eyes. "Tommy's the best brother. If they don't like him, then… I won't like them either!" He hiccupped wetly, and wiped a fist across his face.

His parents exchanged looks over his head.

"How about we go visit Tommy." His mother said, some look in her eyes he'd never seen before. "Maybe he can stay the weekend - you two could camp out in the gardens again, if you liked?"

Bruce nodded shakily, and hugged both of them.

He did not go back to school.

* * *

In November of the year Bruce was eight, his brother had turned eleven. Growth spurts had sent both brothers all over the place, broadening Tommy's shoulders and giving him a good deal of height, while it slowly matured Bruce's face and limbs into something less clumsy and more useful.

Despite the fact that they were both approching the ages where siblings often grew apart, time had only strengthed their bond. A new doctor had encouraged Tommy's codependent nature, making him Bruce's shadow for a good deal of each week. After merging their two bedrooms, he'd begun to spend most of his time back home, still avoidant, still unsure, but now quieted enough that things were - if not peaceful - at least safe.

The brothers were aware things were not going well.

Where once the daily news had been a constant in the household, slowly his parents had been watching less ad less, as news-anchers reported shootings and robberies, murders and various other crimes.

This - perhaps more then the excuse of Tommy not being comfortable in public, was what drove the Waynes to mostly spend family time in distant places, or at home. Trips to areas like the zoo, or either of their parents' jobs were now out of the question.

Still, the boys had managed to convince them that going out to a movie was a great idea.

Two hours of greasy popcorn, shared between two sets of small fingers, gasping potholes and tender kisses between the actors was spent in more peace then was usual, the brothers grabbing each other every time suspenseful music played, while Thomas and Martha took the chance to lean their heads together and lazily keep an eye on their boys.

It was over too soon, spilling movie-goers out onto the cold November streets. Even though it wasn't that late, the sky was still dark, hints of snow swirling through the air as the brothers bumped shoulders and recapped scenes, Bruce sprouting perfect lines from equally perfect memory, while Tommy supplied the explosions and various other sounds.

They didn't even notice, when their father failed to hail a cab, then frowned, as he quietly argued with Martha on the best course of action. After a moment, they slowly pushed both boys towards a side street, with the intention of getting a cab from the main road.

The sound of cars faded into the background, leaving only the excited chatter of the boys as they leapt back and forth in a game, half movie fusion, half continuation of whatever had entertained them for most of the day.

A click stopped the family in their tracks, Martha and Thomas freezing instantly, Bruce and Tommy stopping in their houseplay as they saw the man before them.

"Money." He rasped, jitters in his voice and hands. The barrel of a gun was pointing right at them. "Wallet, jewelry, cash, everything. _Now_."

"Okay." Bruce had heard this tone of voice before, his father's calm, doctor voice. "We don't want any trouble."

"Now!" The man hissed, raising the gun that was sending tremors through Bruce's soul. "Or I'll shoot that little kid of yours!"

His parents tensed, horror on their faces, and Tommy _leapt_.

The howl of the man's voice was almost entirely drowned out by the bang of the gun going off, followed only seconds later by a pain-filled yelp from behind Bruce.

But Bruce wasn't looking behind him. In front, Tommy was pulling a tiny sliver of metal from the mugger's stomach, fingers gripping the wrist of the hand holding the gun so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

The man choked, stumbled back a half step, still in Tommy's grip. There was something in his brother's eyes Bruce had only seen shadows of - something that reminded him of the beast below the lawn.

And suddenly, that same shadow - but not a shadow, more of a _storm_ - was in his mother's eyes. Because Martha was _there_, ripping the gun from the mugger's hands, clicking it to the next bullet in the chamber, and pressing the cold steel to the stranger's forehead.

"You will not touch my boys." Came the coldest, angriest words Bruce had ever heard. And Martha moved to pull the trigger.


	2. PART 1:2 : The Fall

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** And thus, this moves into the second longest fic I've written so far. My apologies if anything seems off - I haven't written in so long, it's taking me a while to get back in the habit and remember how to properly set up characters. Everyone will seem less OOC in a few chapters.

And for anyone wondering, it's still a while until Joker shows up, but hopefully not too long. I think I might be able to maintain a weekly update schedule for now.

* * *

**PART 1.2:** The Fall

* * *

Once upon a time, when Thomas's relationship with Martha had been in its infancy, his mother had a rare fit of sobriety.

"There's something strange about that girl." She'd muttered, once Martha had driven home for the night, leaving only the two last Waynes. "What's wrong with her?"

"There's nothing wrong with Martha." Thomas had said. Then he'd said it again, to his colleagues, to his friends. To Martha's own parents, when they'd had a private conversation a few months before the wedding. And every time since then, when the upper class people who he found himself around all too often would comment on his wife.

There was nothing wrong with Martha.

There's nothing wrong with Martha.

"Martha." Thomas found it difficult to speak. He had a vaguely overheated sensation in his body, that was mostly blossoming out from his arm. "Martha… the boys." _Tommy has a knife. Bruce is…_

He knew there was fire in Martha, always had been. The sort that had made their children into geniuses. He could see it blazing now, hot and rattling against the glass edges of her constructed rules.

"Martha." Thomas whispered, trying to convey all his love for the woman in one word. It came out sounding a lot more like an acceptance than anything more serious.

Martha turned, only a tiny tilt of her head, enough for Thomas to see a glimpse of her eyes. Her hands didn't shake, slim fingers wrapped around cold steel. The look on her face was one Thomas had only seen the edges of many times - something sharp and brittle, dusty from years of misused.

It was the same face that had emerged, when Martha had looked at the corpse of the drunk driver who'd hit their car. The same face appiled when they'd had one final talk with the department head of St. Angus's, Tommy's first hospital.

It was the same flicker Thomas had seen a hundred times before, every time Tommy had thrown something, or Bruce had been shoved around by other kids.

But it was not a flicker here - here, it was a raging inferno, blazing hot and _angry_, like nothing Thomas had ever seen before, but had sensed trembling beneath her skin, twisting itself around bones yearning to break their bounds and stretch beyond.

The tiny part of him not locked in some weird, calm state, very bluntly and quickly informed him that Martha was about to finish killing the man Tommy had started on.

"Martha!" Stepping forward made his right leg feel like jelly, and his arm was barely responding at all. His wife only flickered in his direction, the twitch of a curl indicating that she'd heard, but most likely not listened.

"Look, lady." The mugger stuttered, his gaze going between Martha, the gun, Tommy and the knife fast enough to give any reasonable person motion sickness. "Ya don't want to _kill_ me-"

"_Are you begging?_" None of the Waynes had ever heard Martha's voice that low, coated with frost and ready to hurt. "You threaten my son-" Tommy twitched, steel quivering in his fingers like it was ready to dance. "- you attack my family, you- _why_?"

"It wasn't my idea!" The stranger wailed, feeling Tommy's knife inch closer. "I'm just a hire, I just got paid for the job."

"What. Job." Bruce had begun to tremble, standing between his father and his mother. He hadn't blinked yet, so still that only the smallest quiver of his stance gave away anything. Thomas wanted to reach out, give comfort, hold his boy, but his fingers weren't really working. In fact, they were oddly wet.

Bruce was staring at his hand, eyes almost as round as quarters. Small, child's fingers grasped his sleeve slowly, his _red_ sleeve. On a white shirt.

He was bleeding.

"Mm… Martha." This one was choked. The heat spreading from his arm was beginning to get blinding hot. He couldn't feel Bruce trembling, but his son was gripping tightly now, tugging at his coat sleeve.

For the first time, his wife turned, the gun still held steady, the other hand fast on the stranger's collar.

"Dear." No fear, only the smoothest of calmness and soothing tone of a mother, reassuring him that _everything was fine_ and there was _nothing to worry about_ in a single word.

Her finger moved to the trigger.

"No!" Thomas flung himself forward, stumbling and knocking against Bruce in his struggle to get a hand - his left, not his right, because that wasn't _lifting_ - to grab Martha's shoulder and try to tear the weapon away.

The sound of the gun going off rang through the alley for a second time, the bullet digging into the brick over the mugger's head. Martha stumbled back a step, the recoil rippling through her. Tommy rocked back and forth on his heels, still clinging tight. Bruce had fastened on almost entirely, his hands gripping tight somewhere on Thomas' upper right arm.

"Please!" The mugger was barely standing upright, well aware he'd missed death by a couple of inches, as the bullet had travelled by his ear. "I- I don't want to die!"

"_Talk._" Martha hissed, still staggered back against Thomas. "Who hired you?"

"I- a gang! They've got territory not far from here - in The Bowery, nn-near Sprang River!" There was a gurgling cough from the mugger. He pressed one shaking hand to his stomach and came up red; the wound inflicted by Tommy. "They were having you ff- followed… said you were _ruining_ business. Paid me to- ggkk!"

His last words were cut off by Martha none too gently, as she jammed the gun into his throat.

"_Take us there_. I want to meet your employer." Ice was coating Martha's words. "I want to know what sort of bastard thinks our charities are _ruining business_."

"Mm- Martha. Maybe we should…" The world had a very surreal quality to it. He couldn't feel Martha against his front, Bruce against his side.

"No." This voice was low. The kind she only brought out when they absolutely, one hundred present were not arguing about something. "I have to know. I have to _know_, Thomas."

"He was going to kill Bruce." Tommy's voice was shaking and cracked, splintering as he shook. "Dd- Dad, he was going to kill _Bruce_." Thomas could see the edge of tears welling in his elder son's eyes.

Bruce hiccuped. That was all. Somewhere, in the distance, the first noise of sirens began, filtering through the soundless bubble that had formed around the side-street. The family - plus mugger - all flickered down the street, half torn between waiting for help to show up, and disappearing before they could be convicted of whatever crime they were trying to commit.

"We're going." Martha nudged the gun forward, pushing another wheeze from the stranger's throat. "_Now_. Start walking."

Bruce opened his mouth, like he wanted to say something, but closed it before he would, still squeezing hard on Thomas' upper arm. Martha nudged Tommy a bit, getting the eldest to tug the mugger forward.

They moved faster then Thomas thought they would, Tommy still clinging to the stranger, as he carefully directed through side streets and various hidden alleyways, Martha following up behind him, gun hidden in the small of his back, and Bruce dragged Thomas forward behind everyone else, trying to hide the stumble in his step.

It was strange, being so visible but so hidden all at once, the dark creating an instant cover where anyone they passed looked the other way at the blazing look in Martha's eyes. The stranger must have known the area well, because they managed to avoid crossing any major streets, and arrived fairly quickly, at a rundown area overlooking the first of Gotham's two splitting rivers.

The whole area was filled with sagging buildings and miserable looking businesses. It was perhaps the most populated of any area they'd pasted through, mostly filled with drunks and burn outs meandering about, and the homeless settling down after a long day. Nobody looked at them, especially when the mugger knocked one trembling fist against the unmarked door of a closed-down building.

The man who answered the door was towering and coated with muscle, but seemed rather stunned to see the odd ensemble on the doorstep. He only nodded mutely as the mugger choked out that he needed to talk to a boss.

The inside was falling apart, clearly out of business for a while. The carpet was an ugly shade of burgundy and the wallpaper was peeling a bit in some places. Clashing patterns and faded colours made up a former restaurant, or hotel, most likely, based upon the lobby they were ushered though.

The dining hall was filled with falling apart plastic booths, and stand alone tables. A bar near the far end was by far the cleanest area, and the faintest of noises could be heard coming from the kitchen doors behind that. The lighting barely filled up the room, leaving the corners dark and hidden.

The noise level dropped as they entered, the largest group of people centred around a large corner booth near the far end. They all looked towards the man sitting in the middle of the posse as the Waynes walked their hostage forward.

The man in charge - dressed in typical 70s cloths, complete with thick facial hair - leaned forward, anger becoming obvious on his face as he recognized his targets still walking, safe and sound.

"Fuck, Chill." He muttered, dropping a fat cigar into a crystal plate littered with ash. "Is it that hard to kill a couple of rich shits from the Palisades?"

Chill went a little whiter then he'd been before, his eyes darting back to Martha.

"I suppose you're the one who hired this man?" Martha was unwavering, the gun still hidden in the small of Chill's back. "I've got some questions."

The man laughed, causing the people sitting around him to jump. There was two women, barely dressed, on either side of him, and various other cronies around the table, who all laughed nervously along with their boss.

"You might want to shut your woman up, Wayne." He wheezed, drowning a shot of whatever liquid was covering the table in various glasses. "I don't think she knows her place."

Thomas had to struggle for a second to get his tongue to work properly. "We both want to know why you targeted us; we've never done anything but _good_ for this city-"

"_Good?_" It came out as a venom coated hiss. Several of the cronies wisely scattered as the boss' face began to turn red. "You've ruined business! You've paid to personally crumble half of the gangs in the city! Because of you, hardly anyone can afford to ship in product, or sell to customers!"

"If that's true, why did _you_ put a hit on us?" Martha demanded. "Why not one of those… mafia groups or whatever!"

"_Because_, you little bitch…" Here, the man stood, causing the last of the group to get out of his way. "_They_ can afford to keep business running as usual. You're just picking at the bottom of the food chain! Nothing you can do with all your damn money or… fucking charity dinners will change how the world runs!" He slammed a fist on the table, rattling the glasses. "If we could get you two and your pathetic brats out of the way, we could _rule_ this town."

Thomas sucked in a harried breath that didn't quite make it to his lungs. Martha was strangely silent, not a twitch betraying her thoughts, until she pushed Chill out of the way, and raised the gun.

"You're right." There was a sadness in her voice, something that sounded almost broken. "There's nothing the Waynes can do to save Gotham." And she emptied the last bullet into the boss' head.

The blast of the gun rang only a little louder then the screams of the witnesses, the various other gang members leaping backwards as the man's body slumped down onto the cushions. There was the sounds of a couple of chairs being knocked over in haste, a glass falling from the bartender's hands, and then the room was silent.

"You." Martha lowered the gun, and turned to the quivering Chill. "If I ever see you in Gotham again, I'll finish you myself, got it?"

Chill nodded quickly, and stumbled out of the room as fast as he could, one hand still stuck to his wound.

"I'm not exactly sure how this works," Martha continued, raising her voice to address the room. "but I'm assuming since I killed your old boss that I'm now to replace him."

The remainder of the gang traded some glances before nodding hesitantly, with a couple of unsure shrugs thrown in for good measure.

"Very well, then… if anyone wants to leave, you can do so now, but only now. The rest of you, pick whoever's the most knowledgable, I need someone to tell me how to run this thing." The group looked stunned at her words, but quickly began to mutter amongst themselves.

"Er… Dear." Thomas managed to pull out a nearby chair and collapse down on it. He was still feeling too hot, and quite woozy, shaking a bit while Bruce started to inspect the wound a bit closer. "Could we have a word?"

"Oh!" Martha's gun dropped down, and was hastily shoved in her coat pocket. "Dear, you're bleeding!"

"Yes, I believe I've been shot." Thomas said with a lot more calm then he actually felt. "I suppose the gangster you just killed wouldn't happen to have a first aid kit around here somewhere?"

Martha's gaze darted quickly to the cronies still standing around, before one of the women muttered something about there being one in the kitchen, and went to go get it.

"On another note." Thomas tried to pry Bruce's red-stained fingers off the bullet wound. "I think Tommy has a knife."

"Tommy!" Martha finally focused onto the oldest son, who sheepishly held the offending object behind his back. "Give it here."

"It's mine." Tommy said stubbornly. "I found it!"

"Tommy, give me the knife. You're too young for something like that."

"No!"

"Err… I have the first aid kit." Offered the woman, clearly not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on. "And… Harry here does the books, he can tell you what we do?"

"Kit over here, tell Harry to wait ten minutes. Can someone find a way to clean up?" Martha's voice had taken the same tone it got whenever she was organizing charity auctions or parties. Something about it must have been soothing enough to work, because suddenly everyone was moving around to obey.

Martha grabbed Tommy's collar, dragging the boy over to the table Thomas and Bruce had commandeered, taking the kit and quietly informing the woman holding it that she could go put some clothes on, before she settled down to figure out the pitiful contents of the first aid supplies.

"Martha." Thomas tried to lay some more sternness then usual into his words. "What exactly are we doing?"

"Fixing Gotham." She said, simply, like it was _easy_, and began to dab disinfected on the entry and exit wounds on Thomas' arm.

"Yes, I got… that impression. I mean… more with… you know, this." He tried to wave his left hand to gesture to the clean-up going on, but it turned out looking a bit more like him flapping his hand.

Martha was silent for a moment, as she went about closing up the wounds.

"I think," she said at last, voice low, the barest hints of uncertainty in her tone, "that we've only been treating the symptoms of this city. Gotham is sick. Its people are sick. _Everything_ is sick."

She paused for a second, then whispered even quieter. "We must destroy this sickness at its source. Only then, can Gotham be saved."

And Thomas found, he could not disagree.

* * *

The building was an old hotel, shut down in the late sixties. It'd been bought off and occupied by the nameless gang, who'd sold drugs, the services of women, fenced stolen products and dabbled in various break-and-enterings, muggings and other, similar, low-level things.

They had a couple dozen contacts over most of The Bowery, and they employed forty to fifty people, all local residents who either lived directly in the hotel, or very nearby. Every single one of them had hated the old boss.

Griffin Cox (allegedly, not his real name) had been the former right hand man of the boss before him, who'd taken over from the boss before him, who'd taken over from the boss before him and so on and so forth. The gang itself was mostly stable - made up of those who had no employable alternative - and were mostly subject to watching other powerhouses around them snatch, grab and manipulate.

They took to Martha alarmingly quickly.

Dawn found them sitting in a clean booth, Bruce dozing against an equally wiped out Tommy, and the two parents eyeing each other across the scratched tabletop.

Someone had made breakfast, and brought Thomas a glass of what _might_ have been high-proof scotch to wash down getting shot. Martha had all the ledgers and books in front of her, pencil marks everywhere, and the gun, chamber empty, was sitting directly between them. Everyone else had gone to bed, with promises to show up for lunch.

"I have no idea what we're doing." Thomas muttered, head buried in the one hand that didn't feel like it was about to fall off. "I mean, I _get_ the idea, I… just…"

"The boys." Martha whispered. "Can we do this to them?"

"… Maybe, if we sent them-"

"No!" Martha twitched, glancing towards Tommy, who seemed to sense he was being watched, and subconsciously tightened his grip on his brother. "Thomas, nobody would keep them together."

"Would anyone in your family take them?"

Martha just shook her head. "Someone might take Bruce, probably… maybe one of my sisters… but not… Thomas, they'd just send Tommy to a hospital."

_Like we did._ Came the dark whisper in the corners of Thomas' mind, but he quickly shook it off. Now was not the time for that.

"They might get taken anyway, if we get caught." He said instead. "This is… very illegal. I think."

Martha was quiet at this. Her fingers twitched and tightened on the table, her food forgotten.

"I will not lie." She said at last. "I… I have killed someone. I… let our boy get away with hurting another person. I should have tended to you, instead… of letting Bruce take that responsibility. But these people…" She stared around the empty room, where the touches of its poor inhabitants were beginning to become obvious. "Most of them have children. Others are caring for their sick parents. Some can't feed themselves without these jobs. And this is _everywhere_. Gotham lives for this, needs this."

She lowered her voice, hesitantly reached across the table, and took Thomas' hands in her own. "I have to help them. And I have to be here to do it. I can save Gotham, but… I must _understand_ it before I can do anything. If it means becoming one of them, to help the greater good…" She sucked in a huge breath, and let it out shakily. "Then I will do that."

Thomas nodded, slow and steady, staring at their joined hands, one set of his fingers squeezing, and the other loose in Martha's hold.

"I said something to you once." He began, his voice cracking oddly as he spoke. "I can't help remember those words now."

"Thomas… I can't _ask_ you to stay. You could take the boys… go home-"

"In the presence of God, I offer you my solemn vow." He whispered, so low she barely caught it. "To be your faithful partner, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward… until death do us part."

"Thomas." Martha looked stunned, tears gathered loosely in her eyes. "Thomas, that… You…"

"I promised." He whispered. "To be your partner. Not just your husband, not just the father of your children. To stand beside you, if nothing else. I _will not leave you_."

Martha just stared for a moment, before she nodded. "Okay." She said, hiccuped and wiped her wet eyes. "Okay. We… we'll need to disappear. Ff- for a while… We-"

"Let's not worry about it right now." He soothed. "One of those ladies… Susan, right? She said there was a room upstairs we could use. One of the old hotel rooms. Lets get the boys to bed. And focus on figuring out what we need to do next."

* * *

"Tommy."

"Hmm."

"_Tommy_."

"M'sleepin'."

"_Tooooommmmyy_."

"_What_."

"We're gangsters!"

It took some effort for Tommy to pull back the covers enough to reveal Bruce eyeing him, the biggest grin pasted across his face. Despite appearing quite terrified the night before, this Bruce was vibrating with energy, worrying his lower lip between his teeth and bouncing on his hands as he knelt over his older brother.

"We're not real gangsters." Tommy muttered, sniffing the scent of bitter coffee and syrupy pancakes in the air. "Mum would never let us become bad guys. It's too dangerous."

"But she ddddddiiiiiddddd…" Bruce flopped forward, smacking stomach down on his brother. "And we've got a whole gang and dad's playing doctor and do you know what a _hooker_ is? Nobody will tell me! But we've got some. Lots of them!"

"I think it's a grownup thing." Tommy said, trying to squeeze his way out from under his brother. "Where's mum and dad?"

"Downstairs…" Bruce wiggled around and flipped on his back, nestling his head in his brother's lap. "Talking to other grownups." He got kind of quiet, grabbing Tommy's hand and holding tight. "We're on the television. Everyone says we're missing. But that sounds like we're lost. And I know exactly where we are - we're on the corner of Baypoint Avenue and 73rd Street, in the Fluxburg Hotel. It's shut down, since 1968! That's before I was born, but only a little." Bruce paused, settling down as Tommy gently embraced him, burying his nose in his brother's hair. "I don't think we're going home."

"M'suppose to go back to the hospital." Tommy whispered, trying to burrow deeper. The undeniable shiver went through him at the thought, the same way it always did when he thought of walls closing in on him. "Do I have to go back?"

"I don't think so." Bruce smiled, eyes closed, content in the knowledge that his brother was close. "I hope not. I want you to stay here with me forever. We can be gangsters together, and drive a cool car!"

"Yeah." Tommy closed his eyes. "I hope I can stay too."

* * *

Lillian worked in the kitchen. She was a wisp of a thing, dull brown hair, dull brown eyes, pale, unhealthy skin, most likely no more then fifteen. Her mother - Sarah - was an equally tired looking, older woman going pre-maturely grey, who was in charge of cleaning. Every day, Sarah swept the floors, mobbed up drunk people vomit and split drinks, washed plates, cleaned bathrooms. It wasn't glamorous, but for her silence, and skill at disposing of various criminal evidence, she was paid enough to afford the tiny two bedroom apartment her and her daughter lived in.

Lillian had spent years following around her mother, trailing behind in each steadily risker job, until they'd landed the job with the Baypoint Avenue gang, where, for the first time, Lillian had her own freedom, baking and mixing and piling finished meals on plates. The rest of the cooking staff guarded her fiercely, keeping wandering hands at bay, and her youth safe. Without any other jobs, unlike everyone else, Lillian had become the designated first aider, bandaging wounds and giving hugs when they became necessary.

The late morning following Martha's hostile takeover, Thomas was found sitting in the kitchen, surveying the miserable first aid kit, now slightly stained with Thomas' blood, that was the extent of the hotel's medical supplies. Lillian was sitting beside him, looking slightly in awe of being in the presence of a doctor for the first time in possibly her entire life.

"If we're going to be staying here for a while, we'll need a better medical centre." Thomas mused. Someone had dug up a fresh shirt for him, and a makeshift sling had been fashioned to keep his wounded arm bound to his chest. "I'd really love some antibiotics, some more sterilized equipment… It'd be great honestly, if we just had more things like proper gauze and needles, some dissolvable thread for stitches would be good too…"

Lillian nodded. "I try to cobble together what I can, but med care isn't… well, hasn't been very far up anyone's list."

"Well… I imagine my wife will try to prioritize some of this stuff… hey, you guys get drug shipments in right?"

"Well… yeah, but it's like, coke and pot, and stuff, you know?"

"Surely they can get ahold of some pharmaceuticals, right?"

"Oh, probably, we get all types of stuff- oh!"

"Hi dad…" Bruce paused in the doorway, Tommy reaching above his head to hold the door open. "Can we get some food?"

"Oh, sure, I think there's… Lillian, are there any more of those pancakes you made earlier?"

"Oh, yes!" The girl quickly scrambled up, vanishing back in the industrial kitchen, and leaving the boys alone with their father.

The Waynes eyed each other, Tommy shuffling his feet as he became increasingly uncomfortable. Bruce just locked eyes and held them, not questioning, but simply assuming that, as he had done previously, that his father would inform him of whatever they needed to know.

"Boys…" Thomas shifted a bit in his seat. "We're staying a while. It's kind of complicated, but for now, we need to stay hidden, alright? So you can't go outside, and don't tell anyone our last name, or your first names."

"Are we going to become gangsters?" Bruce hopped up in a vacant seat. "Does tt- my brother have to go back to- his place?"

"It's… a bit complicated, like I said. We're all staying here, but we are not… well.. we are sort of…" Thomas took a deep breath. "How about I let your mother explain? You two want breakfast? Or… at this hour, an early dinner or late lunch?"

Lillian trotted back into view, putting a plate in front of Bruce, and another in front of an empty seat. Tommy was still standing beside the door, eyes flickering around madly, one hand shoved deep inside a pocket.

"Son." Thomas cleared his throat. "Sit down, eat. You've been up all night."

Tommy still eyed them all, but after watching Bruce shove a few mouthfuls in, seemingly unharmed, he slowly crept forward, and sat down, using one hand and a fork to push around the pancakes, before he slowly sliced off a piece and hesitantly put it into his mouth.

Bruce beamed at him, mouth stuffed to the overflowing with sugar coated dough.

"He's a shy one, isn't he?" Lillian said, settling down beside Thomas, and beginning to shuffle around the various notes they'd been writing before the boys had come in.

"That's… one way of putting it." Thomas muttered, eyeing the two boys.

Both boys munched in silence for a minute, Bruce quickly putting away half of his food compared to the fraction disappearing from Tommy's plate. It almost settled down into something involving peace, when Thomas cleared his throat.

"Son." He said, the edge of awkwardness, sternness and something that could have been vaguely related to fear obvious in his voice. "What did you do with that knife you got?"

Tommy froze, a fork half way to his mouth. There was still one hand in his sweater pocket, as it had been since he'd entered the room.

"S'mine." Tommy whispered, shoving his hand deeper. "I _found_ it."

"I- I know, but I don't feel comfortable with you having it." Thomas looked almost sad - like he'd imagined having this conversation, and really didn't enjoy the fact that he had to at all. "I think maybe you should give it to me."

Tommy just shook his head, and opened his mouth to reply, only to be interrupted as a messenger poked his head through the double doors. "Sir? Your wife would like to see the boys now."

Thomas looked like he wanted to go on, but just ended up shrugging and waving both boys out of the room. Martha had always been better at those sorts of things anyway.

* * *

Martha Wayne had been considered a natural born leader since the day she was old enough to play dolls by herself. Unfortunately, it hadn't until much later in life that she'd begun to utilize these talents at all. Charity events had been the main source of it, following her marriage to Thomas. But it was obvious - some struggles and language barriers aside - that she was in her element, making choices and decisions, learning everyone's talents and jobs.

The booth in the corner no longer held the former boss' corpse, and instead, Martha had commandeered the movable tables in the middle, setting them up to support a vast array of journals and papers, and conduct what could basically be called job interviews.

The television was on in a corner, several of the gang members watching in something akin to amazement at the news special currently going on. Bruce caught the end of 'WAYNE FAMILY MISSING', but Thomas dumped both of them next to their mother before he could listen to the rest.

Martha looked like she hadn't slept all night or the morning after, exhaustion layering her face, but she managed to give a weak smile, that was echoed by the men and women sitting on the other side of her - already, judging by the looks of it, intensely loyal to their new boss.

"Boys," she cleared her throat, putting down a pen and grasping her hands together. "I'm sure you're aware that your father and I have done as much as we possibly could to help Gotham become a better place."

The boys nodded, both mentally shuddering at the memories of a thousand stuffy, dressed-up parties.

"There comes a time, however…" She continued, beginning to look a bit awkward, like she got the concept just fine of what she was about to say, but knew it wouldn't sound as good when she said it out loud. "Sometimes, you can't take care of a problem you don't fully understand, right? Or… or you can't talk to a person whose language you don't speak. You have to learn how those things work first."

Bruce nodded, quite wise to the ways of learning. Tommy looked quite uncertain.

"We'll be staying here for a bit." This part was sort of whispered, like the words _I'm Sorry_ were layered in the background, if unspoken. "We need to learn how this part of Gotham lives. We can't go home, we can't tell anyone who we are, do you understand?"

Both sons mumbled their agreement.

"I know this will be difficult." She soothed. "But this is a problem that we can't fix from the outside. We have to become them, to help them. We have to gain experience, we have to _know_. Only then, can Gotham truly be saved."

The people around Martha looked almost as uncertain about those words as her sons did. But there was something inside their eyes - a spark, of hope, of longing. For a life that was better, just out of reach.

"We are not here to make money." She said, stroking a hand along Bruce's. "We are not here to destroy, or ruin. We are here to help people. Which means maybe we'll be feeding them, or healing them, or giving them a place to stay. We might have to do things we don't want to do, but that's okay. It's for the greater good."

Tommy looked stiff, almost terrified, but Bruce just smiled, something sparking in his eyes as well. "We understand." The youngest whispered, the sound of cogs turning, wheels spinning, layered in the background of his voice.

Their mother nodded, and smiled at them. "Go off and play for now, alright? Maybe ask if your father needs some help. We'll talk more later."

Both sons quickly pushed their chairs back, and made to bolt back to the kitchen, if for completely different reasons.

"Oh, Gideon?" Tommy froze up like he'd been caught in stone at the sound of his middle name. He turned for a moment, fear flickering in his eyes, and met his mother's gaze.

"You can keep the knife." She said simply, and turned back to her paperwork, more trust in those words then had ever been given to him before.


	3. PART 1:3 : The Fall

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This chapter gave me so much trouble, and it didn't even turn out as long or as well as I wanted it to. But I did (finally) get around to replying to people's comments, and I've already started on part 1.4.

As well, updates are now every Friday - and the Joker is scheduled to appear in part 1.5 (July 11th). I'll be posting meta and update stuff on my fic blog, alexfics on tumblr. If I can speed up my writing, I _may_ aim for two updates a week.

* * *

The Waynes were pronouced dead in early January of the new year.

Gotham mourned, and the children watched it from the hotel room that had become their home. While they had been told to expect _something_ in reaction to their passing - if it could be called that - the reality was that the city did not take it well.

It was the most difficult thing about leaving. Not even the lost of structure or family fortunes, stability or even the legibility of what they were doing matched the devastation that rippled outwards, the old and the young, the poor and the rich, for once joined together in a common interest.

Those times were the closest their parents ever came to going back home. Without the Waynes to shepherd the flock, crime rose, companies slipped, charities and helping hands vanished overnight, like they'd never existed. It was the effect of removing a massive stone from the ground - everyone rushed to fill the hole that had appeared, only to struggle and hurt themselves as everyone tried to fit. To say the city suffered as a result would be an understatement.

It had never occurred to Bruce, before he'd come here, that his parents were capable of arguing. But where once the manor had allowed even the hardest to disappear a chance at solitude, the closed hotel did not. Most nights ended later then ever, everyone going to their rooms with sour stomachs and sore hands. Across the hall, Tommy and Bruce took to sharing a bed, cold toes buried beneath warm legs, while Martha and Thomas could be heard even a floor below, across the hall, arguing over staying and going, money and resources, morals and obligations.

But January was the worse. The cold hit Gotham with a cruelty that was several months in the coming. The hotel had never been busier, being one of the few buildings with a heat hookup, but business dropped like a stone, post-Christmas empty pockets keeping people away. Gangs were not exactly known for stockpiling money, and getting everyone through the winter became a challenge.

It was the first time Bruce had been hungry.

He'd been aware - distantly - that plenty of people couldn't afford constant food, constant heat, constant _anything_, but he'd never experienced it. It was strange, having small meals and being quietly told That Was It For Now, or going to bed with the feeling that he should have done or had more of _something_. It was not necessarily that they missed meals, more that those meals became smaller.

It was difficult for another reason as well - Tommy's medications, various pills upon pills, had been left at the manor on that faithful evening, and the light sedatives they'd managed to come up with to give him until replacements could be found wore off quickly. After that, they'd managed to buy half of the necessities off the black market and a few drug dealers, and that had lasted Tommy through the last of November and into December.

But as the new year came - most money having vanished to keeping their miserable little operation in business - they ran into an issue of supply, demand and lack of funds. Tommy, for the first time since the crash half a lifetime ago, was unmedicated.

It was the first - and perhaps the only time - that Bruce was scared of his brother. The shakes and vomiting, the screaming late at night, the headaches and random fainting passed quickly enough, but his appetite and sleep worsened steadily, drawing what little muscle was on his bone away entirely. The thin, quivering thing that became his brother was barely responsible, terrified of everything, and very much suffering.

Even if the Waynes would not have had to hide to avoid being found, the boys would most likely have still stayed inside anyway. Bruce flexed the same knack he'd always had back at the Wayne Estate, and managed to find no shortage of hiding places and hidden rooms, where he spent hours talking and playing around Tommy, as the older boy tried to pull himself back down. This was what drove the fear away for both of them - a chance to adjust in darkness and calm, a reminder of a time past.

But by mid to late January, they'd left almost everything of their old life behind. Their parents had become oddly focused and sharp, like someone had cut away all the soft bits and left only the strong core. Bit by bit, old habits died, new ones arose. Their mother started dying her hair black after they'd been there only a week, their father took to wearing a cheap pair of glasses. While the boys spent their days hidden away in some forgotten area, Martha set herself up permanently as a fixture of the restaurant dining room, filling her tables with paper and books, and Thomas took to almost living in an unused side-room of the kitchen, slowly hoarding medical supplies and spending most of his days cleaning cuts, prescribing bed rest and answering question after question.

They left their names behind early on, but it wasn't until the new year that it finally became settled and habited. It was agreed - mostly by Thomas and Martha, who rejected all suggested names by the boys - that everyone would go by their middle names. In reality, however, it was only really Bruce and Tommy who used them, since Martha was dubbed _Miss_ or _Boss_ by everyone who worked under her, and Thomas, upon displaying medical skills, was kept simply as Doctor, regardless of how many times he tried to stress being called Richard.

Tommy took to being called Gideon fairly well, mostly because his name had always been another version of his father's. Bruce, on the other hand, was not fond of his middle name Anthony in the slightest, pulling out a serious expression every time someone called for him. Various other nicknames were all rejected, mostly due to the cooks in the kitchen and the street workers, who enjoyed cooing his new name at him every time he came into view.

Fortunately, nobody ever made the connection between this version and the Waynes. The boys' names had never been public knowledge - even before their disappearance, Martha and Thomas had kept their first names from the press, and their middle names were not even listed on their birth certificates, having been decided on later. With very few friends, little family, and no teachers to speak of, only a handful of medical staff knew anything identifying about the boys.

And two young adults, no obvious characteristics, were easily lost in a city where television sets were rare and the newspaper unreliable. Gotham searched for a man and a woman and two boys with the last name Wayne, and ignored all other leads.

And so days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and rumours arose - of murder hits and kidnappings, of gangs and mafias and _tragic accidents_. The Waynes were not the first to disappear, and with such fame riding on it, almost anyone capable of pulling a trigger or a knife was claiming to be their robber, killer or captor.

There was panic, there was sadness, and there was looking. But the Waynes had vanished. So there was acceptance, and there was death.

The Waynes died in November. They were put to rest in January. Bruce turned nine in February.

Because the boys weren't allowed outside of the hotel - not without being heavily escorted, and even _then_, that almost never happened - they took to playing on the roof. Snow and thin layers of ice made it very cold, and very wet, but with no other tall buildings next to them, and a large edge keeping the wind away if they crouched, the boys had an excellence view of their new kingdom, the Sprang River gurgling through slushy ice to the south, and the hum of the city to the north.

Tommy had recovered a bit by mid-February, enough to stand mostly straight, even as his eyes darted nervously side to side. His voice still shook inside his throat, but the words came when he asked for them, which was more then could be said for before.

It was one windless afternoon when Bruce finally crawled up onto the ledge, worn shoes sticking to rough, uneven brick, a threadbare coat pulled tightly around his rips. When his brother would ask him later what possessed him to stand on the edge, arms spread wide to the cold air, head thrown back to the pale sun, Bruce wouldn't have an answer, only that the cool heat felt good on his brow.

"Bru-" Tommy's voice was almost swept away by the wind. "_Anthony_. You shouldn't be up there."

"But isn't it beautiful?" He yelled, over his shoulder. "It's a whole kingdom, Gideon!"

Tommy was silent for a moment, as he looked back and forth, taking in the crumbling buildings, and deserted roads. "It's not a very good kingdom. Come down." He murmured, almost to himself.

"But it will be." Bruce could feel the biting grasp of Gotham worming its way into his flesh. "One day, it'll be the best." He raised his head, and closed his eyes against the weak sun. "And I'll be king."

Tommy didn't say anything, but there's a sound, like he agreed.

* * *

In March - or perhaps it's April - Gotham is still wet, cold and miserable, but business has picked up. Their parents employ more people then the gang ever did before, almost a hundred bodies strong, with each section organized like a company, instead of a motley group of criminals who all hung out in the same place. Of the employees that their mother manages, there's a small number who buy - or make - drugs of a pharmaceutical and narcotic nature, and sell them to customers, a couple dozen women, and a few men, who sell themselves on the streets or via telephone and a lone weapons dealer. There was also a handful of teams ranging from pairs to a half dozen each who broke, stole, mugged or otherwise borrowed without returning. And one or two smugglers. A couple of fences to move and sell any items procured. A large chunk - the first largest, followed by the prostitutes - who dealt solely in counterfeit _anything_. There were some anonymous persons who disposed of evidence. The last was a large number who did nothing criminal at all - but simply worked for a livable wage by cleaning, cooking and keeping track of others.

In the middle of all this barely controlled chaos, the boys did not have a job. If asked what they were suppose to do, their father would give them a weak smile and tell them to keep themselves out of trouble, and their mother would tell them to learn something useful. However, with only the empty hotel to supply them, and the people inside to entertain them, most days were actually spent in some version of make-believe.

In fact, it was during one of these many sessions, that Bruce stumbled across the thing that would lead him to the defining moment of his life. Oddly enough, this thing was a mangily, stray tomcat.

One early afternoon, a light lunch already eaten, they were out playing on the roof once again, Bruce mostly engrossed in a mock battle that involved moving a hundred or so loose stones and bricks over invisible strategy points, mumbling quotes and remembered information from old books once read in the Wayne Manor Library.

Tommy had taken to seating himself on an overturned crate, watching and trying to _learn_, memorizing the words falling from Bruce's mouth, trying his best to keep those little titbits from disappearing down the cracks that furrowed his brain. It was not easy, trying to keep up with the speeding, complex machine that was Bruce's mind. It made Tommy feel nauseated, too tight inside his skin, too weak to keep his own bones upright. How could his baby brother, the one he'd bottle-fed, who he'd watch grow, learn to walk, learn to talk, the one he'd thrown himself over to save, when their car had been hit, the one he'd laid beside at night for years, be so much _greater_, so much _smarter_, so much… _more_, then he could ever imagine? How could Bruce have the brain of a scientist, a warrior, something glorious dancing beneath his young skin, when Tommy could not even stop his own hands from shaking?

Bruce moved two small stones, each no bigger then his fist, downwind an imaginary river, placing them on the ground with a surgical expertise, gentle-like and careful. Tommy watched closely, ever guarding, even in their little heaven.

The small meow to his right almost sent him bolting to his feet. Bruce didn't even look up, too engrossed in his own world. Tommy eyed his brother for a moment, before slowly getting up and going to investigate the noise.

The roof had been used to dump things for ages, making it either a treasure trove, or a complete waste of time. It didn't help out in this situation. Tommy quietly turned over box after crate, looking under slightly damp cardboard, until he finally came across a skinny, miserable cat, hunkering down under a broken piece of wood.

"What'cha lookin' at?" Tommy jumped as Bruce suddenly grabbed at his arm, standing on the tip of his toes to see over his brother's shoulder.

"I think it's a cat." Tommy admitted, lifting the edge of the board and earning himself an angry hiss. Bruce squinted down at the bedraggled creature, as if to confirm, yes, it was actually a feline, then nodded, apparently satisfied with what he found.

"We should feed it." Bruce was practically vibrating with energy, wiggling in place, eyes bright. It was the most excitement Tommy had seen from his baby brother in months, a return of the Bruce that had spent hours running around the Manor's grounds, tugged into the world of books or learning something new. This was the Bruce that melted Tommy's heart with the smallest inhale of his lungs.

So Tommy found himself building a makeshift house out of old wood, while Bruce fed meat scraps and bones from the trash to the nervous tomcat.

It was most likely not the best diet, considering said cat - nicknamed 'Maurice', because Bruce couldn't name a cat _Spot_ or anything equally common for an animal - was still underweight and the food they had access to wasn't even that great. But still, they watched the cat, who lived on the roof, all that day, and the next, and the one after that.

It was two weeks into said cat ownership - in which, surprisingly, nobody was any the wiser - when the boys met Selina.

This time, it was early morning, still too cold for much beyond giving Maurice their breakfast scraps. Bruce had just finished encouraging the grey tabby to lick bacon grease off his fingers, Tommy transfixed - and he really shouldn't have been, he should have been watching - on the movement of his brother, when Bruce looked up, and uttered a quick "oh, hello!".

There was a girl, standing on the edge of the roof.

She was dressed warmly, almost all in black, some dusty grey fur around the collar of her coat, a winter hat pulling short, dark brown hair back. There was a set of goggles, glasses with tinted lens and a fitted edge lowered onto her neck. She watched them both with a keen eye, like she was sizing them up, finding their worth.

Tommy heard more then felt his heart speed up, the tensing of his muscles almost painful against weak bones. Bruce smiled, kindness layered like a well-made cake, curiosity well hidden, but still there.

"That's my cat." The girl announced, pointing a gloved finger at the tomcat peeking out from behind Bruce's legs.

"Oh." Bruce didn't seem very shocked by this - had he always known there was an owner waiting to come reclaim their best kept secret? It made a small burst of anger flare in Tommy's chest. The cat was _their's_.

The girl narrowed her eyes, taking in the tomcat's scruffy coat and bright eyes, before she hopped down from the ledge with an ease that suggested running around rooftops was her daily exercise.

"We kept him well-fed." Bruce volunteered, picking up Maurice and offering him to their strange visitor. "He looked like he had a home."

It was a cat. It didn't look like much to Tommy's eyes, but Bruce had always been better at seeing those sorts of things.

Still, even Tommy couldn't miss the look that skittered across the girl's face at the word _home_. Something partially guilty, sad and angry all at once, then gone again, as she accepted the cat.

"Well," she said, sounding like she'd been expecting an argument when she'd originally envisioned this scene. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Bruce gave her his most charming smile, the one Tommy had seen him turn on grandmothers and gangsters with equal success. "We were calling him Maurice, what's his real name?"

The girl gave the tiniest twitch - the sort Tommy recognize as meaning she wanted to run, right now. "… Storm. I called him Storm. Because he was grey." She shuffled her feet a bit, confidence suddenly gone.

"I'm-" Tommy elbowed his little brother before he could finish his sentence, earning him a cough and a glare, before Bruce started again. "I'm An-_Anthony_. This is my brother, Gideon."

There was a pause from the girl, who eyed them both, as if trying to decide if they could be trusted. "Selina." She said at last, cat hugged to her chest. "My name is Selina."

Then she was gone, up and over the ledge, down the rusty, rickety fire escape and vanishing into a tiny side alley beside the hotel.

"Whoa." Bruce breathed, having tracked every moment. "It's like she can _fly_."

* * *

A few days later, the boys came up to their roof to find Selina waiting for them, two worn, cardboard boxes at her feet, and a determined look upon her face. Tommy had the horrible feeling she was about to become one of those people who became your friend whether you wanted them to be or not.

Bruce greeted her with his usual charm, and they spent five or seven minutes exchanging standard adult greetings in voices that suggested they were both trying to act older then they were. After such niceties were established, Selina explained her intentions.

"You did me a favour." She said, something serious in her face. "And I'm paying you back." Hence, the boxes.

The contents could be easily be described as mix-match. There was a ton of clothes - mainly, by the looks of things, the type that would belong to an adult male - a couple of books, some bottles of questionable contents and substances and various other things commonly found in a household. All were used, and a bit worn.

"It's not much." Selina gestured awkwardly. "But I figure, it's about the same worth. Consider it a… business transaction. We're even."

"Even." Bruce rolled the word around his tongue, like he was learning a new taste. "You didn't own me anything."

"But I did." Selina shoved the boxes across the roof at them. "You did me a favour, and I'm doing you one in return. You could sell, or trade them or something. It's all I had." She shifted uncomfortable at those words. "I don't need them - find someone else who does."

She left shortly after - quickly, in the middle of a conversation. Tommy suspected it might be a habit. She left the brothers with their boxes of stuff, and the unusual decision to make; what to do?

* * *

Bruce spent more hours then Tommy bothered to count, cataloguing every single thing that Selina had left them. It quickly became apparent that she'd left nothing that would be considered useful for herself - everything was clearly books that would not interest her, clothes that were for adults, things that, Bruce deduced, were probably items she owned duplicates of.

Bruce offered his brother the take of anything he wanted, but Tommy simply shook his head. He rarely wanted things these days.

Strangely enough, Bruce didn't take anything either - nothing, except an empty, lined notebook that had most likely been gifted to someone who did not appreciate it. He found a pencil somewhere, and then had sat for almost as long a time as he'd taken to sort through the boxes, doing absolutely nothing but stare at a blank page, twirling a pencil. Tommy took the time to slowly pack everything back together, taking several tries to get everything rightly organized. In that time, Bruce barely twitched, deeply engrossed in his own thoughts.

By the time someone yelled up that it was time for dinner, Bruce had started to get a sharp, careful look in his eyes. They hid the boxes, and had a quick meal with their parents - Thomas looking tired, Martha even more so - and then retreated to their room to mull over the day's events.

It was a few hours after dark, after hours of silence, when Bruce finally picked up his pencil again, and slowly flipped to the first page. Delicately, with a grace that no nine year old should possess, he wrote something, his whole body bent over his lap as he scrawled.

When he looked up, a minute or two, he showed his brother the careful notes. It was simple enough - the date, Selina's name, a note of the cat and the _payment_ of the boxes full of supplies. A simple note saying the favour had been completed.

That the favour had been returned.

"It's a _business transaction_." Bruce whispered, pencil twitching like a weapon ready to strike.

* * *

To understand truly how important this was, one must first understand how the world of Gotham worked.

The keyword was money. More of Gotham ran on money then could possibly be explained. It was often argued that a shallow cut bled red, but a deep cut would bleed green, as was the way of Gotham.

The criminal underground of Gotham - if underground was even truly the way to describe it - was the deepest, most twisted wound that anyone was capable of inflicting. The knife used to make this incision was wielded by more hands and pushed by more fingers then anyone was able to count. It was possible, that the knife and the bleeding were both money - cause and reaction, as they were.

Gangs, and the mafias, operated under script policies when it came to money. The first - and really, only - rule was that one always owed more then they borrowed. _Interest_ was the real enemy. They charged premiums for everything sold, everything given. There was no such thing as _free_. Nobody was equal, and neither were any deals struck.

It was entirely possible that the favour that happened between Selina and Bruce - for truly, Tommy almost hadn't been involved - was the first of its kind. They were not friends; had, in fact, never met before their deal was completed. The worth of the two boxes, strangely enough, was most likely quite equal to the time and resources Bruce had devoted to caring for Selina's lost cat over that half month. Bruce did not ask for more, and Selina did not ask for less. Once the deal was done, it was never mentioned again - even when Selina would drop by at odd times, suddenly sitting on the ledge and commenting on the obscurity of Bruce's games.

This was the nature, of the _favour_ that Bruce had created. Wholly unique, because strangers did not give favours. Wholly strange, for many had tried - Martha among them - to create a system that would benefit everyone, only for a young boy to stumble across it instead.

The favours worked like this;

* * *

Bruce surprised his brother with a very, very late Christmas gift in late April. Though it was hardly summer yet, Gotham had already adopted a scorching heat, leaving less energy for games, and more times for lazing indoors, or under shade, and this provided a wonderful cover, as Tommy napped away from the sun.

The previous December had been chaotic, and what few gifts the boys had received were only from their parents. They had not had the opportunity to give each other anything, a problem that Bruce had sought to rectify.

The second person with whom Bruce made a favour, was one of the thieves that Martha employed. Bruce selected this man in peculiar, because he had a daughter, not much older then Tommy, and was generally kind to any children that passed through.

Bruce took great care in outlining how the transaction was going to go down. Bruce was looking for a knife. In exchange, depending on how good the knife was, Bruce would give something of equal worth. It was quite likely that the man - named Frank - did not actually take him very seriously at all, but still, within a week, had returned with a set of five knifes, all short, a bit dull, and not very impressive on their own.

Bruce produced a winter coat - something that was rare and much sought after in the colder months of Gotham - and deemed it worth of four of the blades. Frank - no doubt expecting something childish or useless - was quiet stunned, but very, very quickly accepted.

Thus, was the second favour. Over and done with, quickly. He marked it carefully in the journal, dated and described for future reference.

The third favour involved a bit more faith. To one of the cooks, Bruce gave two worn noir mystery novels, and explained the favours once again. Bruce deemed the books worth about as much as a cloth or other wrapping necessary to bind a gift. The cook - most likely because Bruce was the youngest son of the boss - seemed nervous at the idea, and was able to return the following evening with a thick black cloth that was perfect for wrapping the blades. She muttered a few times, that it wasn't worth as much, and honestly, she could perhaps pay him back for the books later- but Bruce simply showed her the journal, and noted the favour as completed.

_Debts_ were wounds everyone felt. Debts bled people dry. Debts destroyed families, homes, lives. Debts was the language that Gotham spoke, clearer then all others.

And Bruce had found a way around it.

* * *

Martha had once said to Tommy that _you can keep the knife_. Tommy, whose mind was a bit more shattered then probably known. Tommy, who had once killed a man, with naught but his teeth.

It would frequently be argued that letting Tommy keep the knife was a very, very bad idea.

Bruce, however, saw things differently. Bruce had spent half of his - admittedly short - lifespan getting used to the idea that _Tommy_, while loving and caring, in the deepest parts of himself, had more sharp bits then a hedgehog. It took great care to unravel the heart of his brother, more care then most people could spare, in the strange world they'd grown to live in. Bruce took to this task out of something that could, perhaps in itself, be called the repayment of a favour. Tommy had saved Bruce's life. Tommy had offered comfort when no other could. This debt was all consuming. This debt must be repaid.

In his own way, Bruce knew he must save Tommy as well.

Many, many years from now, a boy that Bruce hadn't yet met would flip through his ledgers one by one, until he found a certain book, smaller then the rest, bound in old leather. In this ledger, every favour would be undated, and the giver marked only by their first names. The boy in question would not know who most of the people were, having never met boys named _Bruce_, _Tommy_ or any girls named _Martha_, but would ask Anthony - the boy who at that point, was more of a man - what favours these were.

_Those are personal ones_. Anthony would reply. _And the ones I can't repay - yet._

But that was not now.

Tommy's knife - the first one - was in actuality, the only piece of Wayne Manor that any of their family still owned. He'd found it while following his baby brother on an adventure through their attic, stalking through boxes and chests, old furniture and things that were simultaneously worthless and priceless all at once.

Bruce had settled beside someone's old army chest, and had spent hours reading old letters, dusting metals and learning the story of an anonymous family member, long since gone. And when his brother had been bent over a faded black and white photograph, their lone flashlight spotlighting forgotten memories and floating dust particles all at once, out of the corner of his eye, Tommy had seen a shine of silver.

_WAYNE_ had been crudely cut into the small wooden handle, a bit slanted, obviously not used to being written like that. The blade in question was no longer then two or three inches, the sort that folded back into the handle. Even in Tommy's small hand, the knife fit perfectly into his palm, and was concealed completely when he closed his fist.

Tommy had managed to smuggle this knife in and out of the hospital for several years. He never used it, though it often found its way into his hand at night, when the rattling in his head threatened to let loose all manners of hell. The first, and only time that the blade ever tasted a human in Tommy's presence, was the day that their family died - a cold evening in November.

His parents saw this night only once - on the same night. Bruce, however, saw it much more often then that, though he never said. The hotel room they shared was small enough that when neither could sleep - though both pretending they were - Bruce would often look over to see the smallest glimpse of metal shining in the moonlight, held tight to Tommy's face, his chest, his arm, wherever Tommy's mind thought was next to be hit.

Bruce's knives were a lot more then just a Christmas gift. He had _plans_ for them, and for his brother. Things that were beginning to scratch at the edges of his mind in numbers and lines that made only sense to the chaotic intellect the youngest Wayne employed.

He gave Tommy the gift one morning, an hour or two before his parents had finally gone to bed, a couple of hours before dawn. Tommy woke with a sharp gasp, the sort that said something had been snacking on him while he slept, and he fully expected it to be there when he opened his eyes.

Bruce smiled at his brother in the dark, wiggled around so he was sitting beside him, instead of kneeling over. Tommy blinked once or twice, just to check, then pulled himself up into a sitting position, pressing warmly against Bruce's side.

"Got something for you." Bruce whispered and lifted the black wrapped bundle into Tommy's line of vision.

His older brother stared for a minute, obviously stunned, before he shifted uncomfortably. "S'Not my birthday." He muttered, staring down in a look that said he hadn't been expecting this in the slightest, but was wholly embarrassed that he hadn't gotten Bruce something as well.

"It's for last Christmas." Bruce explained, and gave it over gently, into Tommy's hands (that still trembled, _why_ could his brother never stop shaking-) and smiled again. "And it's a thank you gift. Because you're the best brother."

It was a little hard to tell, but it looked like Tommy blushed. He certainly ducked his head, and lowered the bundle into his lap to unwrap it.

The exact moment that Tommy realized the first knife was there was felt and heard like a lightning strike. Bruce could feel it coursing through bone and muscle like an electric shock, felt the beat of his heart speed up. Heard the gasp of breath that sounded half-way between _this is a bad idea little brother_ and _yes yes yes_.

"There's more." Bruce whispered it directly into Tommy's ear, felt the jump against his own head as Tommy pulled the cloth away completely, dumping all four knives right onto the bed with a soft clatter of metal on metal.

"W-_Why_." Something in Tommy's voice sounded like it was cracking.

This part was difficult to explain. The words were in Bruce's head, all lined up like neat little soldiers ready to execute when necessary, but them refused to get anywhere near his mouth. What came out wasn't anything like that, and yet was more true then the original intent.

"Because I want you to keep saving me."

Tommy was silent, every gust of air from his nose even and controlled. But his fingers ghosted over metal and wood, straight and curved, gentle like a mother's touch.

"I don't really know how to do that." He admitted at least. "S'hard."

"Of course." Bruce said, leaned his head against his brother's shoulder. "But now, you can learn."

And somewhere inside of Tommy, a little piece of him was alright.


	4. PART 1:4 : The Fall

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **Thank you to everyone who has been following this so far - we're officially at the halfway point of "Part 1: The Fall". I might not have mentioned this before, but this part of the story takes place during the 70s, and we'll steadily be moving forward in time.

Joker next week! I'm excited. I have also beat my previous fanfiction word count, and this is officially my longest story. This chapter gave me a lot of trouble, but I'm finically done with backstory, so we should be good.

**Also, I am looking for people's trans* or genderqueer headcanons for Batman characters. Send 'em in, and I might use them. I'm looking to add a bit of diversity to the cast.**

* * *

Bruce giggled; a pure, beautiful laughter that sounded like it should have belonged to a angel. The face that smiled up at Tommy was young - three or four, approximately the age that Bruce had been when the car accident had happened. He reached up, and wiggled a small hand into Tommy's fingers - fingers that were the not the six to seven year old fingers that Tommy had when he'd laid in that hospital bed, but the fingers he had now.

Bruce barely came up to his hip, as he tugged his big brother across the Manor lawn, doing a full-body wiggle in excitement. It felt strange, standing here in a body that was twelve, when his brother looked three, in the home that they didn't have anymore, but the strangeness was of a weirdly good kind.

Bruce giggled again, tugged again, smiled up at his brother and _God_, it was like Tommy's heart was coming home, settling down into a nest of contentment.

It was so easy to follow his brother, walk through the crisp grass and breath in the soft scent of freshly mowed lawn and the breeze off the sea. This was a Bruce with the body of a child, but still almost consumed with a mind of an adult, curiosity bubbling to the surface easily and quickly, smoothing down into a shimmer as he babbled in a tone that was part young-part old to Tommy about leaves and slugs and various other things that captivated him.

It wasn't until Tommy looked up and saw the branches of the forest that bordered the western part of the grounds over his head that he realized how far he'd followed his brother. He was certain these were the trees he'd built forts among, yet looking around didn't reveal any of the old footpaths, and the leaves above had woven themselves together so securely that he couldn't even see the sun that had been shining down a second before.

A giggle far behind him suddenly told Tommy that none of these things were important. Bruce was not holding his hand anymore.

"Bruce!" His call echoed through darkened trees and bounced back to him quietly. Somewhere he couldn't see, Bruce giggled again, but the sound was coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once. "Bruce, come out!"

The forest rustled without a breeze, and echoed back his brother's mirth. But there was no Bruce.

"Bruce! BRUCE! Anthony?! Come on, Bru, this isn't… isn't ff-funny. We need to go home."

His words fell on empty silence. Even the laughter had stopped.

"Bruce?" He whispered, more to himself then anything, and almost immediately, an answering scream - a scream that sounded all too much like his parents laying in a broken car and a boy who had cowered from a broken window and a man who'd died from his wrists - came rushing back at him from right ahead and behind and all around, pounding down on his ears. It was deafening - maddening - and filled entirely with pain and terror.

"Bruce!" It was strangely easy to pick a direction and run, the volume of the screams growing until suddenly Tommy was standing in a small clearing. The sounds had stopped, no noises except a strange snapping sound coming from an old tree.

Tommy crept closer, his heart almost drowning out everything with its quick beat - until it stopped with a sharp hitch, as he caught sight of the bird on a low branch.

It was a dull grey, speckled and ugly, broken feathers and cracked talons gripping tightly, scars riddling a faintly diseased body. Yellow eyes watched Tommy from a round, flat face and muscles moved beneath restless skin. It was an owl. The ugliest owl Tommy had ever seen.

It was eating something.

One foot was raised to an off-coloured beak, talons squeezed around a small black body. The snapping sound was in actually the breaking of its meal's bones, crunching as they broke, the flesh separating easily.

The owl took a final bite - tearing the head off completely, and swallowing it whole - and then dropped the remains to the forest floor, giving a sharp screech that made Tommy's ears ring.

What possessed the boy to step forward couldn't be named - but all the same, he found himself crouching above the discarded meal, taking in the mangled limbs and torn wings.

It was a bat. A headless, limb-torn bat, larger then any that Tommy had ever seen, but still frighteningly small.

Its heart was still beating in the exposed chest. It didn't even stir as Tommy bent down and scooped it up, cradling the dying creature in his hands.

_Thump thump_. The sound of the bat's heart was strangely loud. Tommy could feel it through his fingers, hear it clearly. In fact, it was even familiar.

He knew that sound.

It was the sound of _Bruce_, sweet Bruce, whose heart Tommy had listened to since the day he was born, the heart that beat in the chest of a small boy, except it wasn't coming from the rib cage of his little brother, it was coming from this creature, the bat, the thing that plagued Bruce's dreams, the _one thing_ he was scared of…

Tommy looked back down at the bat, saw the heart stutter in its ruined cavity, and he started to scream.

* * *

"_Tommy!_" The room was shaking, too dark to make anything out, something pushing against him while he struggled to get out of the suffocating covers. "Tommy! Wake up!"

"Ww-where are we?" It took effort to press himself back against the mattress, but he did anyway. There was just enough light for Tommy to see the concerned face of his younger brother.

"Home. The hotel. Where were you?" Bruce lowered his head slowly against his brother's shoulder. It took Tommy a minute to reprocess that this Bruce was nine years old, not the little toddler that had made the Manor's lawn his own.

"Home." Tommy whispered, so soft Bruce almost couldn't hear. "The manor. And the forest."

Bruce was strangely silent at that. "What did you see?" He whispered back.

"The forest. A bat. It was… dd- it was a bad dream."

Bruce went quiet again, before he slowly twisted around, so he was laying on his back, mimicking Tommy.

"I have a lot of dreams about bats." He said at least, some seriousness in his tone that Tommy hadn't heard before. "It was… a lot worse, when I was younger. Smaller. Whatever. I used to dream that I was being eaten alive. I… I figured out a trick though, you want to hear it?"

"… Sure." Tommy murmured, pressing a hand across his brother's chest, feeling the steady heartbeat that lived there.

"… You know that owl doll you used to have?" The word _owl_ sent a shiver down Tommy's spine. "It was the only thing that you had in all the hospitals. I used to pretend that it was because it had a part of you inside of it, and they had to keep it close to you or you'd die." It sounded fairly morbid to Tommy. "At night, when I had a bad dream, I'd pretend your owl doll was there, except… well, you know that owls eat bats as part of their diet right?"

_Owls eat bats._

"I'd pretend the owl was big enough to chase away all the bats, every single one of them. It'd eat them before they could eat me. And after, you- it- whatever would come flying back, and keep me warm the whole night."

Bruce smiled in the dark, almost embarrassed. "It was like the owl was you. And you're the best brother."

_The owl was you._

_The bat had Bruce's heart._

_Owls eat bats._

The air wasn't quite reaching Tommy's lungs, and he could feel his eyes welling up with tears. Bruce - _sweet dear Bruce, light in the dark_ - didn't comment, though surely he saw. Instead, he turn over, planting a soft kiss on Tommy's brow, and laid his head down on Tommy's shoulder.

And Tommy did not sleep, a hand on Bruce's heart the whole night, hoping against black dreams that the beating thing inside his brother's chest would never stop.

* * *

Tommy turned twelve in September.

There was something to be said, for being away from the hospitals for so long. He'd finally begun to put on weight and a couple of useful inches, muscle replacing paper-thin fat. His shoulders broadened, and his face had slowly started to lose its baby fat. With short black hair, bright blue eyes, and an ever-constant frown, he could almost be labeled as imposing. He'd even developed what could best be defined as _a walk_, a large stride and tight shoulders, hands in pockets sort of thing that suggested anyone who touched his brother - because you never saw Tommy anywhere but two steps behind his brother, ever watchful - there would be hell to pay.

That birthday was one of the lowest key events yet held in the abandoned hotel, with his parents offering advice and a quiet evening with a nondescript movie marathon as gifts.

Bruce had utilized his growing favour-based network to obtain the highlight of day - a secondhand record player, and a taped-together crate full of disks with peeling labels. Music was a luxury that Tommy had barely been exposed too - most songs these days being considered too excitable for mental hospitals - but Bruce had scraped together a good collection, full of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley and The Beach Boys. It hadn't appeared until the following morning, presumably with Bruce setting it up while Tommy slept off cake and cheap monster movies, and Bruce announced it by putting on Queen's _Stone Cold Crazy_ and turning up the volume.

Music had never sounded so good as it did at seven in the morning, Bruce's wide grin as devilish as the fingers that had dropped the needle. You couldn't beat 70s rock.

* * *

The two rooms that Thomas and Martha had chosen were across the hall from their boys, the last rooms on the floor. In actuality, it was a single room with an attached bathroom, the two twin beds replaced with a single queen and a chest of drawers placed in the corner for what clothes they'd managed to obtain.

Unlike the boys', their room had little of any personal in it. The time it looked the most like it was occupied by permanent residents was when it was too late to occupy the open areas of the hotel and both doctor and boss had to retreat to their private space to overlook inventory lists and write the notes of the day.

This part always made Thomas a bit skittish - not so much because he was writing anything revealing - just patient notes, really - but because Martha's note taking took on a lot more of a 'detailed list of all criminal activity' vibe then his. Writing down what they were doing, even if it had saved them a lot of money, and even lives, was still a damning prospect in and of itself. It was _evidence_.

And evidence could tear them all apart, if the wrong people (_or the right_, a part of him whispered) got their hands on it. Where would the children go? That was the worse thought of them all. He could imagine Bruce being dumped with some relatives who wouldn't feed his mind like it needed, who would bleed him for the family fortune once the youngest son was old enough to inherit it. They would probably commit Tommy. Not send him to get better - send him to go away.

Or even worse - foster care. That made Thomas' throat go dry every time. Being shuffled through houses of unloving families, or stuck in homes for troubled children. _Maybe that wouldn't be too bad_. If Thomas was released from a hospital, program or home at eighteen, he could go home, and maybe take Bruce with him. That would be for the best - their boys back into their childhood home, probably with the option to visit their parents in prison.

"Where on Earth have you gone?" Martha's tone was borderline amused, a ledger sitting loose in her lap, twirling a pen back and forth between her fingers.

"A place with consciences." Thomas responded, more darkness in his tone then he really intended. His wife must have been able to sense that, because she smiled at her book, a playful quirk of her lips.

"I assume we're on death row, and our children scattered to the four winds." She sighed, managing to sum up Thomas' thoughts in one.

"I'm not _that_ morbid." He defended, tugging the crossword in his lap up to chin level, and pretending to hide behind an article on motor vehicle accident. "Besides, we wouldn't even _get_ the death penalty. Capital Punishment has been illegal in New Jersey since '72."

Martha did turn this time, to give him a good stare. "That wasn't that long ago."

"I know." He muttered moodily. "Thank God for small miracles."

They returned to silence, an out-of-style lamp bathing their bed in pale light as they went back to their scribbles.

"Just to confirm though-" Thomas started, speaking quickly to get it out before Martha could stop him.

"If you want to leave, you can take the boys and go." Martha certainly didn't look up this time, but her tone was tired. "I won't blame you."

"I'm not _leaving_ you. I just… Should we be raising the boys like this?" He made the effort to reach over and take her hand, squeezing it in a show of support.

"Plenty of other people raise their children in these sorts of environments." There was a sadness in Martha's eyes, a rare sadness. "If they can do it, so can we. We're here to learn." She looked back at her book. "We're here to learn." She whispered again, almost to herself.

* * *

Thomas is the only one who reads the paper.

Over the past ten months, the Waynes had been in and out of the news - sometimes the subject of interviews, other times the reason for rumours. Never once, in all his watching, did Thomas hear a rude word, which was really saying something, considering the nature of Gotham media. Instead, there was tales of kindness, of joy between friends, the loss experienced by family, and the cries of people who none of them had ever met, never even _seen_, but those people had cared all the same.

The Waynes had made Gotham, hundreds of years ago. And for the first time, in all that time, there was not a single one to live on ancient grounds, to guide and to nurture.

This was why Martha wouldn't look.

But Thomas had lived and breathed Wayne values. Every chance he could get, he kept an eye on what people were saying, the problems that were going on, and most importantly - the state of their land, fortunes and Wayne Enterprises.

Rarely did Thomas ever bring up anything he read to Martha - and he certainly never said anything to the boys - but when he did, it was all articles on rising crime rates, mob bosses walking free, or things that might effect them now.

Only once did he ever bring up something else.

"You're not telling me something." His wife was giving him one of her patented stink eyes, and it was doing a good job of wanting to make Thomas want to fess up.

There's a quick glance to the empty doctor's room around them - always check who's around, he'd already made that mistake once or twice - to confirm he was allowed to speak of their old life.

He clears his throat, a bit awkwardly. "You asked me not to tell you these sorts of things."

Martha's stare gets even more disapproving, which was a feat in and of itself. "What is it."

"… Our wills are going to be read in December. Or- or January, they haven't decided yet." He tried to get it out fast, and judging by Martha's look, he didn't try fast enough.

"Where'd you hear that?" There's something strangely neutral about her tone, like she's not really talking about them.

"Newspaper." He whispers in return. "The- there's talk about taking Wayne Enterprises public, or… possibly appointing a new CEO."

Martha was silent.

"Martha, we're going to lose the house."

She closed her eyes.

"All our money, all the boys' money, everything we had - it'll all be gone."

She hung her head, squeezed her hands into fists in her lap.

"We'll be dead." He whispers that part the lowest, so low she probably had to strain to hear.

"The Waynes," she murmured back. "Are already dead."

He found it strangely hard to argue.

* * *

Snow hit mid-November, just around the time their first year as criminals had ended. Martha was only reminded of the date when Thomas refused to get out of bed, mumbling something about _starting a tradition_.

Her morning coffee tasted different, though it was exactly the same as it had been the day before. The numbers of her ledgers and employee charts didn't quite line up the way they normally did either, and almost everyone was out doing their work or otherwise being busy.

It was the first time that Martha ended up lingering, hanging around the kitchen and listening to cookers argue about the proper way to make pasta, and a couple of off-duty prostitutes sharing a cigarette and some amusing client stories. Thomas did not come downstairs, and the boys were in and out before she got there.

Someone must have taken mercy on her, because a couple of her counterfeit makers came up not soon after lunch, and asked if she'd like to supervise some shipments that were coming into the docks this evening.

There was something to be said for her table and her ledgers. Martha almost never saw any crimes actually be committed. She didn't even see the goods that came and went. She simply saw the numbers and the end results - which was the money, mostly.

But she was standing on the cusp of something new. She'd lived this life for a year, barely a stain on her hands, and now…

A choice. She saw it so plainly before her. Their will wasn't going to be read for another month or two - she could take her boys home, maybe stand trial if she had too, say she forced Thomas into the whole thing, and nobody else was to blame. Get back everything that they lost.

She closed her eyes, standing in the corner of a kitchen in a shut down hotel, that was headquarters to a criminal gang of misfits and single parents.

When she opened them again, David, the leader of her counterfeiters, was standing before her, a look on his face that said he knew she was trying to decide something important.

"Sure." She said, not a weakness in her voice.

* * *

The evening of the one year anniversary was spent in a fairly similar manner as to that fateful one all that time ago. She was stuck in an small, hidden alley, and there was guns pointed in her direction.

Fortunately, there was several people with guns on her side of the alley, all crouching behind garbage cans and crates with her, looking none too happy to be there.

"I'm real sorry, Boss, this wasn't suppose to happen." David wheezed beside her, looking rather horrified that he might have lead his leader into a dangerous or deadly situation.

"Understandable." She returned, a small handgun in her palm. She hadn't held a gun for a year, not since she'd emptied a bullet into her processor's head. This one felt strangely light - though perhaps it was simply because the other had been heavier.

A couple rounds of ammunition buried themselves in the brick above their heads. The young man hidden between David and Martha gave a small sob, and Martha gave him an apologetic look for having dragged into this.

"Any ideas, boss?" Came David's croak. "Should we make a run for it?"

"Do we even know who these people are?" She hissed back.

"Er… I think they're a part of that group down on Lenin Boulevard." There was another round of guns firing, and someone yelled in pain off in the distance.

"You're going to need to be a bit more specific."

"They… they were in the paper last week, ma'am. Some of their men got caught… er, caught selling drugs to kids, boss. You got pretty upset about it, if I remember rightly."

The memory comes back with a bite. Martha winces.

"They've been pushing at our borders, ma'am." David looks away. "That's their boss there, at the end of the alley."

The rest is unspoken. _Choices_. So many choices. There isn't time to close her eyes, imagine her boys. She gestures to the two thugs across the way from them - muscle that came with them for these sorts of things. It's a sign that doesn't need explaining.

They strike.

This part of Gotham - like many other parts of Gotham - had always been prone to violence. In the five or ten minutes it takes to corner every rival and take them out (_make it quick_ she whispers to each sound of a gun firing) nobody has called the cops, and if someone has, they've yet to arrive.

There are seven bodies - one boss, three thugs and three miscellaneous gangsters. The snow around their bullet riddled bodies is during black in the evening light. The cold air rips through Martha's lungs like a clean knife, and its surprisingly easy to breath.

"It's just business." She says, to the young boy that had come with them, to her soldiers and creators. They nod, wise to such ways. It is always just business.

Still, she finds herself looking over her shoulder as they leave, all evidence destroyed. There's the strangest feeling that she's being judged.

* * *

Bruce began becoming adventurous at just about the same time he figured out the only trick he'd ever need to control his older brother.

The knifes that he'd gifted Tommy had stayed hidden for almost as long as he had them. Though, on occasion, Bruce has seen his brother take them out at night, to hold in his hands for a few minutes. There's always some sort of fear in his brother's eyes, like he was about to fall head first into something Bruce couldn't see, and wasn't quite sure if he wanted to make the effort to survive, or to jump in feet first.

But, blades hidden or not, it took very little to convince Tommy to bring one along to their regular rooftop playground.

Getting him down to street level - that was a bit more difficult.

"No." Tommy's face was twisted in something that could be described as horror. "_No._"

"We're just going to look." Selina had dropped by sometime after lunch, and had promised to show them _something awesome_, which was probably code for something cat related. In typical conspiracy behaviour, Bruce had known the day before that she was going to try to convince them to scale the rickety fire escape and go wherever she planned to take them.

"We're not suppose to leave the building." There was a faint tremor in Tommy's limbs. "It's _dangerous_."

"_Everything_ is dangerous." Selina shrugged. "Gotta learn how to survive it at some point."

Bruce swings one leg over the ledge - watches Tommy twitch from the corner of his eyes - and climbs down onto the fire escape.

There's a moment where Tommy doesn't breath. Then he twitches. Moves. Climbs over the edge, and next to Bruce.

This is not the sort of world where Tommy is far from Bruce.

* * *

The trick is simple. Where Bruce goes, Tommy will follow.

You would think that Bruce - sweet, innocent Bruce - would not use this against his only brother.

But you would be wrong.

* * *

Selina lives in the topmost corner apartment of a modest brick building a couple of blocks over from their hotel. The whole place is an organized mess - half empty boxes filled with things that aren't her's, nests of blankets and clothes, mix-match furniture.

There is a _lot_ of cats.

Tommy has to sit down, cradling his knife in his hands like its a lifeline, after walking so close he stepped on Bruce's heels as they followed Selina. He breaths fast and hard, shallow air and wide eyes shaking him to his core.

True to Bruce's predictions, Selina's surprise is a litter of kittens, ears pressed against their heads, eyes still closed. Bruce replaces the knife in Tommy's hand with a kitten, and that seems to work to calm him down, trembling fingers stroking soft fur.

Selina's apartment doesn't have anyone else in it. There's a dusty queen-sized mattress in a closed-off master bedroom, but it obviously hasn't been used in a long time. There's no sign, in fact, that there are any adults around at all. Everything's scattered about with an air that suggests she's been on her own for a while.

Still, her fridge is stocked, and there's plenty of food in the cupboards. There's a couple of bowls full of jewellery that she says she's going to sell - while not looking Bruce right in the eye. He at least has the decency not to ask.

After almost a year stuck inside the hotel, the apartment is an adventure in and of itself. Selina pours grape juice into wine glasses and they sit on the floor, trading cats back and forth and discussing their limited range of gossip - most of which comes from eavesdropping.

The sun starts to dip down into the faded skyline by the time they start thinking about going back. Tommy's calmed down enough that he's not nearly as twitchy - though he does give quite a few cats a farewell pat to lengthen the stay - and with some coaxing, they find themselves heading home with Selina as their guide.

It's a strange thrill, to be normal kids arguing about television shows and how cold it was while walking down the street. Nobody bothered them - possibly because there was three of them, or maybe because with Tommy's height and stiff look, they thought it best not to mess with them.

Still, it was Tommy who grabbed the back of Bruce's jacket and pulled him into a side alley as they were almost to the hotel. He lifted a gloved finger to shush Selina's complaints, and pointed down the street.

Martha was outside, standing by a car and talking to someone that the boys vaguely recognized as belonging to their gang.

"She doesn't go out." Bruce hissed, fingers digging into Tommy's side. "She _never_ goes out."

"I know that." Tommy gave him a quick look, and turned back to watching. "Maybe it's gang business."

"Maybe she's cheating on your dad." Selina volunteered, and shrugged at both boys' dirty looks. "What? It happens."

Martha finished speaking, and got into the backseat of the car once the door was opened for her. The engined revved, and slowly peeled out of the parking lot behind a couple of trucks that normally sat in the hotel's parking lot.

"We should follow them." Selina tugged at Bruce's sleeve.

"I don't know…"

"It'll be an _adventure_."

There were times that Tommy could not wait for Bruce to grow up a little bit. But all the same, he found himself trailing behind, as Selina predicted their route and dashed behind, keeping up easily with the slow-moving convoy. Fortunately, there wasn't far to go, and the whole operation stopped not far away, at the nearest docks located where Sprang River dumped itself out into the Gotham harbour.

Selina dragged them up another fire escape, and the trio soon found themselves sitting on a low rooftop, eyeing the small group of people who'd gathered around one of the piers. Martha stood back, leaning against the side of the car with her arms crossed as she watched her troops open up the flatbeds of the trucks and ready things for whatever was about to happen.

Five complaints from Tommy, two elbow fights between Selina and Bruce and one almost-got-caught later, a fast-moving boat pulled up to the pier, and was quickly overrun with people throwing ropes and pulling the boat into the dock.

Selina sucked in a breath was they started to unload crates and pack them away after Martha inspected them. "Guys, I think your mum's overseeing a drug shipment."

"_No_." Said Tommy, in way of the word of the way, and Bruce gasped a short "she wouldn't."

"Would she?" The youngest boy looked at his brother in desperate hope.

Tommy shrugged, and turned it a ducking motion when a loud gunshot rang though the dock, shattering the window of the car Martha was leaning against.

Bruce's scream was swallowed by Selina and Tommy slapping their hands over his mouth simultaneously, and pulling him beneath the edge of the roof, hiding them completely as shots were fired. When they peeked over the ledge again, most of Martha's gang had been driven into a nearby alley, directly to the side of the building they were on. Bruce crawled forward, ignoring Tommy's hand gestures, and peeked over the side to see what was going on.

The sun had almost entirely set by now, washing the dock in darkness. Tommy and Selina crawled forward to flank Bruce as they watched the strangers advance into the alley, yelling out a demand for surrender.

It was like the air stopped moving, no breath getting into anyone's lungs. There was whispered conversation between everyone, though it didn't carry over the slap of waves against the docks. Then suddenly, there was a flurry of activity, guns firing, and people darting quickly between various covers to advance. One of Martha's landed a fatal shot, sending a shiver down Bruce as the body slumped, and one of the strangers took down one of theirs a moment later. Then their gang was moving, going all at once and firing widely. One or two got close enough to land physical blows, and one of the strangers bolted for it in a quick flash of terror. Martha swept forward with a speed her opponent clearly wasn't expecting, because she managed to lodge a bullet from her own gun right through his throat before he could even squeeze the trigger.

And within a few minutes, it was over. Martha stood, very softly shaking at the rear of the alley, while her troops gathered their own dead, leaving what was supposedly a rival gang in the thin layer of snow. The trio quickly ducked out of sight as she looked up to the rooftops, but she didn't see them. Glass was cleaned out of cars, the last of the crates were put on the trucks, and a last check for evidence was preformed, but everyone hightailed it out before anyone else would show up.

Bruce's hands were shaking as he slid back from the ledge and sat down on the roof. Tommy was still crouched beside him, and Selina was eyeing them both, like she'd seen death plenty of times, and was wondering how they were going to react.

"She said she was only going to do that once." Bruce's voice was thin in the cold air. "Sh- she said she wasn't going to kill again."

He looked up at Tommy with tear-filled eyes. "Why would she lie?"

Tommy found it hard to make his tongue work, and he settled for gathering his baby brother in a hug, and letting him howl into his shoulder.

* * *

Martha could count on one hand the amount of times she had seen Tommy without Bruce, but one of those times was shortly after the alleyway incident.

It was just after midnight, all the details sorted, cargo in its rightful place and the dead organized so they could be returned to their families. She was treading back to her room, an early night for an eventful day, when she almost ran into her eldest in the hallway.

Tommy was eyeing her with a sharp look that suggested he wasn't too happy with her. "I have a question." Something about his voice was rough - perhaps breaking from age, or something else that had happened.

"Of course." She eased up, still feeling the sticky edges of dried blood on her fingers.

"Am I really sick?" He asked, crooking his head in a manner that suddenly reminded her of a hawk, or an owl. "Or did I just get all my darkness from you?"

There was no air to speak with, no muscle that would move. Martha struggled to open her mouth, to explain, to make excuses, but Tommy simply turned around and disappeared back into his room.

It took a long time to get her feet to move again.

* * *

It was a rarity that allowed Martha any time around her own children. It wasn't necessarily that she was avoiding anyone, or that they were avoiding her - it was simply the tangled schedule that they now kept.

The day following the rather eventful shipment, a heavy snowstorm drove the boys from their rooftop, and a maid cleaning kept them from their room. So Martha was offered the rare chance to be in the same living space as her boys, as they both leaned over pen and paper (like her, a little part of her fluttered with pride) and talked amongst themselves.

"Got some smart boys there, boss." Molly was the sort of mousy-haired girl who looked like she was born to be a waitress. She always made sure that Martha's cracked mug was full of coffee. "Teachin' each other math."

Just because she'd been watching, hadn't meant she was listening. The numbers she'd been focusing on beneath her had been almost enough to wipe out all else. But with a strain of her ears…

Integers. Nine year old Bruce - with no formal education, a handful of disinterested tutors and only an ancient library no longer at his disposal - was teaching his twelve year old brother - who'd never listened to a single teacher in his life - math. Complicated math, based on the look that was quiet plainly permanently gluing itself to Tommy's face.

Some air suddenly found itself caught inside her throat, where it honestly had no business being. Tommy did not like to listen. Tommy did not like to learn. Yet all the same, Tommy looked at Bruce like he'd never forgotten a word that'd fallen from Bruce's mouth, and never would.

Bruce's hands sketched numbers quicker then an accountant's, mouthing terms and symbols that were most likely just little squiggles in his brother's eyes.

It was rare for Martha to regret anything. But she felt it now.

* * *

"Do you think putting Tommy in the hospital was a bad idea?" Martha stood at the end of their bed, eyeing her husband in a way that suggested it would be impossible for him to get out of this conversation.

Thomas - while brave in his own way - had the sudden urge to flee.

"I think he needed treatment." He said after a moment, pausing in his note taking about Julian Asher's stomach ulcer. "You know how he was like after he woke up - he could barely talk."

"I know _that_." Martha still hadn't moved. "I mean… later. He could walk and talk again, and he was mostly okay, he was just…"

"He was attacking nurses. And his doctors." There was always a bit of a sour taste in Thomas' mouth from those memories. "He wasn't stable."

"But were we sure?" Slowly, she slid into bed next to him. "I mean… what if it wasn't a head injury, or a strange personality change? He was always a bit stand-offish before… maybe… he was just…"

"Traumatized." Thomas finished. "He could have just been scared enough to attack. Or maybe he really was sick. Maybe he still is."

"Perhaps." Martha whispered, and all Thomas could do was kiss her, and hope she understood.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** I keep forgetting to mention this, so this version of Martha makes sense. I drew a fair bit of inspiration from "The Flashpoint Paradox". In that story, Bruce died instead of his parents, and they were so torn up over it that Thomas became a murderous Batman and Martha became the Joker.

The multiverse theory suggests that all worlds/stories/verses are tiny variations of each other, which suggests that all versions of a person are capable of doing things they've done in another world. If there exists a version of Martha capable of murder, then that theory suggests that all versions of Martha have, to some extent, a bit of murderer in them, and are only waiting for the right circumstance to let it out.

As well, Bruce's parents died when he was eight - and I don't know about you, but I did not have a clear view of who my parents were at age eight. If all we have in canon are Bruce's own words, clouded by decades of anger and childhood trauma. There's no saying of the true nature of their characters.


	5. PART 1:5 : The Fall

**WARNING**: **There is attempted underage rape (non-graphic) described in this chapter, and off-screen successful underage rape of another character (non-described). It takes place in the Seventeenth scene (all scenes are separated by those bar breaks) and is referenced briefly, but not described in the Eighteenth. **

* * *

"There's something _wrong_ with that boy, isn't there?" It was one of her advisers - Ethan, if she remembered correctly. He gestured wordlessly to Tommy, sitting quietly next to Bruce with a sharp look on his face.

"It is debatable." Martha responded, and made a note in the ledger she held.

"You know what creeps me out the most about that kid?" He continued - ignorant of him, because who spoke ill of the child of the person who paid your wages? "He doesn't act like a normal brother. I had five of the bastards, and we fought all the time. If someone could do something better then the others, we were all mighty jealous." Ethan frowned. "I don't think there's ever been a jealous thought in that boy's head - or at least not any for his brother."

There's a part of Martha that wants to (_drive her pen through his neck snap his fingers in her hand lift the gun tucked inside her peacoat and turn off the safety_) argue with him, but another part agrees - Bruce is growing smarter by the day, and Tommy, who still struggles to write, doesn't think twice about it.

Tommy, while not _stupid_, does not excel. Yet, for a boy who was said to never be capable of kindness again, whose brain was said to be permanently scrambled, he accepts his brother completely, the one who can do everything, so much better.

It's strange. It's not right.

There's something wrong with that boy.

* * *

_The problem with criminals_, Thomas thought, _was that they were inheritability assholes_.

There was a peace to his little haven; medical equipment warding him against the outside world, notes and numbers instead of people. Warm bodies came in - for aches and pains, cuts and bruises, then lumps, and unexpected pregnancies - and warm bodies went out. Most of his clients (probably not the right word, because none of them ever paid) were members or friends or family of the people who worked for Martha. Some of them weren't affiliated with anyone - they were just too poor to take care of themselves.

This was easy. It was natural - even more fulfilling then his old hospital job. He was truly helping.

Some of them did not make it easy.

Martha had established a _reputation_, which was codeword for _off-limits in ear-shot_. Many of the heavy muscle and thugs that came through never had a nasty word in Martha's rooms, and they certainly never had any for their boys, after what happened to the last person who threatened children in the hotel. But Thomas?

Thomas was weak. Thomas rolled over his wife. Thomas did not _argue_. He was easy to bait and soft-spoken enough not to fight back.

Thomas was a man of his oaths - he had promised to stay by his wife, no matter what, and he had sworn that he would not harm a living soul. Those were his words, that he lived and breathed.

It did not mean that it made the words cut any less.

_The doctor_ was weak.

Everyone knew this.

And the vile words burned themselves into the soft tissue of his head.

* * *

Nightmares were an unspoken part of the brothers' relationship. There was no surefire way to deal with any of them, for one night Tommy could wake up dry heaving from the impact of a car, or Bruce would wake up in cold sweats with the feeling of teeth still buried in his flesh. Sometimes, the opening of their eyes would be enough to dispel the illusion, other times, advanced measures must be taken.

"Tommy." There's a wheeze in Bruce's voice that sounds like the thinnest wisp of air will carry it away. "Tommy, there's something under the bed."

Tommy is well aware that there is not anything of substance down there - only a few hours ago, he'd shoved an old box of spare clothes underneath himself. And he'd spent long enough in hospitals for someone, or multiple someones, to explain the theory of childhood monsters to him.

"_Make it go away_."

He grabs the sheathed knife under his pillow, and crawls over Bruce's smaller body to check anyway. There's something to be said, for preforming an ordinary big brother task. And if there is anything Tommy's good at, its probably saving Bruce.

"There is nothing there that can hurt you." Tommy says, after thoroughly checking behind several boxes. "It must be gone now."

"I can't hear it anymore." Comes a tiny whisper from the mess of blankets on their bed. "You must have scared it off - it doesn't like owls very much."

_Owls eat bats_.

Bruce does not leave favours unpaid. When Tommy lays down, his breath quickened inside his lungs, it's Bruce's warm arms against his chest that lets him drift back off.

* * *

Tommy gets into his first fight shortly after Bruce's tenth birthday. Regular escapes into the city streets had become a common thing now, sometimes aided by Selina, sometimes not. It's on one of these trips, that the boys turn a corner to find themselves surrounded by youths only slightly older then themselves.

The tallest one is missing a front tooth, but it doesn't stop him from grinning down at their newly acquired victims. "Well, well, well. Looks like a couple o' snot -nosed brats are on the wrong side of the street." There's a cocky tone in his voice that sends shivers down Bruce's spine - a reminder of harassing rich kids from a school he'd barely been too. "This is _our_ territory. Fuck off."

"No, it isn't." Says Bruce, who is well aware of exactly how many streets their mother's gang has, and knows very well this is one of them. "This area belongs to the Baypoint Gang."

"No, its ours." One of the cronies of the tall one backs him up with a very sure nod. "We _got_ it."

"_No_." Bruce looked at Tommy in desperation - _save me avenge me show them they're wrong_.

It had frequently been said that Tommy was not the sharpest crayon in the box. Whether or not this was true, was another thing entirely.

It was, however, agreed that what happened next was not his finest moment.

The tall one opened his mouth to sneer or laugh something in Bruce's face, and Tommy leapt to defend his honour. He did this by slamming a closed fist directly into the only remaining top tooth of the tall one's mouth.

It was four against two. All of the other boys were taller, but the brothers were faster, and had the sort of cleverness that allowed them to see attacks before they happened. Bruce managed to land a few sharp blows to the smallest - enough to make him run - while Tommy swept a second off his feet, and slammed a third into the wall. The fourth, however, was smarter then that, and managed to grab Tommy rather quickly. They grabbled for a moment, before Bruce managed to snag the tall one's shirt collar and pull him back long enough for Tommy to stick a hand inside his jacket.

Bruce wasn't even able to see the flash of silver that signalled Tommy pulling his knife out. He did hear the yell, as Tommy made a wild cutting motion, and the fourth one stumbled back, blood dripping from his arm.

The stranger shifted back, fear colouring his face a few too many shades pale. And just as quickly as they had all appeared, the four boys were gone, the last of them running down the street.

Bruce had gotten away clean, feeling a bit sour and sore, but Tommy had a cracked lip, and his knuckles were split open. There was a fever-bright look in the older brother's eyes, like someone had just introduced him to the concept of violence for the first time. There was the finest of trembling that slowly got heavier and heavier as Tommy gripped his blood-wet knife.

"C'on." Bruce tugged his brother's arm, and slowly led him back, feeling a little flutter in his chest at the idea of helping, instead of being helped.

"Don't feel well." Tommy croaked, a block or so back the way they came. Bruce gently led him to the front step of a local business - he vaguely recognized the name as being affiliated with their gang - and sat him down.

It looked like the air wasn't quiet getting into Tommy's lungs - every open-mouthed gasp he made did very little that Bruce could see. He tried rubbing circles on his brother's back, and got something of a hiccup or suppressed sob in return.

It doesn't take much to pry the knife from Tommy's fingers. Bruce wiped the extra blood off on a spare cloth he had taken to using when opening doors he didn't want fingerprints left on, and stuck the blade back inside its hiding place in the fold of Tommy's jacket.

There was the faint jingle of the door's bell from behind him, Tommy giving a full-body jerk at the noise. The shopkeeper - Bruce defiantly recognized him - was standing there eyeing the boys with faint concern.

"You're the boss' kids, right?" He smiled a bit at Bruce's nod. "You want me to call the hotel or something?"

"We'll be okay." Bruce said, one hand squeezing his brother's knee. "He just needs a moment."

There was plenty of rumours circulating about the boss' oldest son, and by the look in the shopkeeper's eyes, he'd heard at least a few of them. But something in his gaze softened - the look, Bruce recognized, as belonging to someone who knew someone else like this - and he disappeared back inside, before returning with two glass soda bottles.

"On the house." He said, a tiny bit awkward, but with the hints of fondness that came with adults that liked kids. "Your mum does a lot for this community."

"Thank you." Bruce nodded, and made a mental note to add this favour to his ledger later. They were left alone after that, Bruce enjoying the taste of flavoured sugar while Tommy just gripped the cold glass and pressed it against his head.

"Bru." Tommy's whisper was so low he barely heard it. "Do you think I'm broken?"

There is a part of Bruce that wants to lie, pull something soft and kind from between his teeth, but he doesn't have the heart to do that to his brother. Instead he pries the red metal cap off Tommy's glass of Coca Cola and puts it back in his hands. "Everyone's a bit broken, Tee. The trick is using all those sharp edges to your advantage."

Tommy just looks at him with a hopeless expression.

"I'll never be scared of you." Bruce said. "Now drink, it's the _normal_ thing to do."

Tommy must believe him, because he wordlessly lifts his glass and takes a shallow sip. And smiles with a heart-broken expression.

* * *

"Sometimes," Thomas says. "I really think there's something wrong with children these days."

Martha doesn't say anything, but she lifts her gaze to show she's listening.

"I just treated this boy - couldn't have been more then fourteen - for a knife wound. Said he got it in a fight with some other kids. He needed eight stitches. Eight!" Thomas shakes his head. "I hate to think of what they'll do next."

"It's just how they're raised, I suppose." Martha says, and makes a mental note not to tell her husband about the phone call she'd received from a worried shopkeeper about her boys and a bloody knife.

* * *

There is an attempt on Martha's life around the month of Bruce's tenth birthday. A simple drive-by shooting while she was standing in the lobby, saying farewell to the small leadership of a neighbour gang. The first crack of breaking glass causes almost everyone to dive to the floor, long since being used to such things. The second wave follows only a half-moment later, aiming at anyone still standing and the ones laying on the floor.

Someone throws themselves on top of her - taking two bullets in the process, but not before Martha takes a shot right through her left leg. The burn is quick to spread, turning white hot by the time the last of the cars have driven off, and people are starting to pull themselves off the carpet.

"Remind me to replace that glass with something solid." She wheezes, and receives a nervous laugh and a "sure ma'am" in reply.

The look on Thomas's face when he comes storming out the back room destroys any mirth though.

"At least we match?" She tries, and the look he gives her says he doesn't appreciate the humour at all.

* * *

Bruce finds a half-abandoned playground a few blocks down the river. He takes to sitting there in the early morning, seating himself on the swing set next to Tommy as he writes notes in his ledger. He likes it because the area is central enough to get traffic of all ages, while not truly remaining a destination for anyone.

This is the place he gets his first request from a stranger.

His book is out on his lap, as he toes gravel and swings back and forth lazily. The crunch of stone brings up his head though, and Tommy jerks from his perch next to him.

"You're… you're that kid right?" The boy is a fair bit older then them - probably sixteen or seventeen, and nervous to boot. "The son of the boss lady. You do… you do people _favours_, right?"

"That's me." Bruce pulls himself to a stop. "I do something for you, and you do something of equal value back. Items, situations, information, whatever you'd like. Nothing too illegal, and I don't take money. What you get is what you owe, I don't cheat people."

The look on the boy's face said he's still not sure. "You're younger then I thought you'd be."

"I _am_ Anthony - Elenor, the boss, is my mum. Richard the doctor is my dad. I've got _connections_." Somehow, Bruce manages to say that whole thing without sounding smug - and it does relax the youth.

"Well, I don't have much, but it's my sister's birthday in two weeks…"

* * *

The first favours Bruce had done were pretty straightforward - he had something, gave it to someone, got something back fairly quickly. After a while though, they started to get more complex. He asks for something, takes few suggestions in return, has someone else pay off their favour and uses that payment to repay his own. By the time the spring starts to shake off the last of the snow - strangely early that year - Bruce was running anywhere from ten to fifteen favours open at a time, managing to juggle them all far better then anyone could have suspected. They stopped being as simple around the same time.

Martha had not recovered as well from her attempted assassination as they thought she would - the bullet migrated into her knee a few days later, and she was laid up for weeks. It was perhaps the only time the family was all worrying about the exact same thing - and it was Bruce's motivation to get out there.

He started trading resources for information soon after the attack. Most of his clients - because that was really the best way to describe it - were the homeless or other kids of varying ages. He traded pleasures - books, toys, jewellery, the occasional record - and necessitates - clothes, hygiene things, bottles of fresh water, a bit of food and information about good places to go - for news about other gangs, arguments and alliances, crime and the law.

Sometimes it was small things - a snack in exchange for the gossip of the day from the local high school - or it was a big thing for regular updates. The ledger that was quickly getting fuller and fuller had begun to adopt a layer of tape and stray pencil marks, as it traveled around.

If Martha or Thomas knew anything about Bruce's system, they never mentioned anything. Bruce did make a habit of sitting down with his mother at least a couple times a week, talking about how many of his games he convinced Tommy to join in on (all of them), how he was sleeping (good with the occasional bad dream), how many other kids he saw (lots - she never knew from where though), how Tommy was doing (slowly better all the time) and anything he learned (which took up most of the discussion, every time). In these conversations, which always settled Martha down into some slightly less stressful state, he slipped the tiniest of details - how he'd talked to a maid whose sister was dating a boy who sometimes worked for a gang on the other side of the river, and how they were planning to start using the light rail trains to move drugs or that he'd spoken to a guy named Gary who had heard of some independent contractors down on 93rd Avenue who might be willing to work for them.

Martha might have been many things - but a fool was not one of them. She saw Bruce's attempts to hide behind normal conversation, and she made note that he never truly revealed where he got most, if not all of his information.

He made it back safety every day, and something about Tommy's shoulders started to look more confident, as he became use to escorting his younger brother. That was good enough for her.

* * *

Sometimes Bruce dreams about his monster under the lawn.

Now that he's lived in Gotham's streets for so long, it's starting to look less like a bat, and more like the hundreds of gargoyles that perch about the city. But it still always bears a mammal look - the bat-snout nose, the massive ears, matted black fur, a tail that connects to the lower ends of the wings' membrane. It doesn't move like stone either - or what Bruce expects stone to move like. Instead, it stalks, prowls, moves from ledge to ledge like smoke pooling and tries not to touch the ground.

(Because only prey lives on the ground.)

He dreams about running across Gotham's rooftops like Selina, scaling fire escapes and fences like Tommy, racing down streets at the top speed of other kids his age. Then he'll look, quickly to the side, and see the beast, crawling straight up stone walls, scratching its claws against metal, disappearing around corners, over roof edges, down sewer drains.

It gets bigger all the time. The shock always wakes him up, because he tries never to think about the creature. It sends him hurtling out of sleep and right into Tommy's arms.

His brother never asks. His brother is smart like that.

Only once does he not wake up right away, when he dreams about toeing the rocky shores of the Gotham harbour. He sees it gliding across the water, so far out that it's really only the massive shadow that identifies the beast.

His breath catches in his throat. The wake-up shock does not come. The beast angles itself and swoops upwards for a moment, stretching a long limb out under the moonlight.

It snatches something out of the air - something alive, because it gives a long, pained screech.

_Raptor_. Bruce's mind supplies. Probably a hawk - or an owl, based upon the noise.

He shivers once, violently, and finds himself awake.

Sometime in him decides not to tell Tommy about this latest development.

* * *

When Bruce was five, his brother had been in a hostage situation. The most stunning memory from all that, had been the sudden realization that his brother might not always be there.

A part of Bruce had lived every day since then trying not to believe that.

Martha has a reputation. The boss of Baypoint Avenue was a force to be reckoned with, if you messed with any of her employees. She had a way of _finding people_, and Bruce, while not generally talked about in the same gossip circles, had an equal reputation of being known.

The boss and her son Anthony - they knew a lot of people.

Which meant that as long as Bruce and Tommy stuck to the Bowery, which now almost entirely belonged to Martha's gang, they were safe. People knew who they were, if only by name, if only by face. And you didn't mess with the relatives of bosses, everyone knew that.

So that day that the boys suddenly finds themselves cornered on their way home is not a usual situation.

There's five of them - all men, all much older and much larger. Even over Tommy's extra height, they still manage to make the two brothers look very small.

They also all have guns. Five safety-off guns against one knife stuck inside Tommy's pocket.

"Let us pass." Even so small, Bruce's voice carries, something commanding and knowing in his tone.

"I don't think so, kid." The one in front seems to be in charge - he gives both boys a disgusted look. "Your mum's been making some bad choices lately."

"_She_ should be in the kitchen, not her man." Whispers one that's moved behind Tommy. A couple of cheap sniggers rung out from around the ground.

"She won't be happy if you hurt us." Bruce said, trying to layer the unspoken message of _death_ inside his tone. It didn't seem to work, because the men broken into equally gleeful grins.

"Oh, we're counting on it." Came the thick purr, and the leader turned to his gang. "Take the small one, leave the oldest - he's the retard anyway."

There was something akin to a snap in Bruce's head, a memory of kids spitting the same words about Tommy. All thoughts of running disappeared, as he dropped his ledger and leapt forward, managing to sink his teeth into someone's hand.

There was a yelp, and somewhere behind him, the sound of Tommy's knife being drawn reached Bruce's ears. Large hands grabbed Bruce's jacket and lifted his feet off the ground, giving the child a perfect opportunity to kick and scratch with everything he could get at. There was the noise of someone getting the sharp end of Tommy, and one attacker stumbled into the corner of Bruce's line of sight, pressing his hands against his stomach against a thick flow of blood.

Someone must have actually thought to use their gun, because a moment later there was the too-close _bang_ going off by Bruce's ear. The ringing almost drowning out someone's scream - a young scream, was it Tommy? - and the instant following rattle of someone shaking his collar sends the world spinning.

"Make sure that one lives." Someone distantly speaks through the thin hazing coating Bruce's mind. "And make sure he can get a message back to his mummy, if he's smart enough for that."

There's another scream, and this time, Bruce is pretty sure it's actually Tommy. His vision starts to stabilize, and he refocuses just as he's being thrown into a pulled up car.

Tommy's on the ground, knife forgotten. His arms are pressed tightly to his chest, like he's trying to hold something in, and there's blood _everywhere_.

A split second before the car door slams shut, he sees one of the remaining attackers lean down, pick up Tommy's knife and use the front of Tommy's shirt to lift him up off the ground.

Bruce's own scream of "_no!_" is lost as someone pushes a sweet smelling rag over his mouth and nose. The afterimage of Tommy's terrified, pale, blood-splattered face is the last thing he sees against the back of his eyelids.

* * *

The first thing that comes to Bruce is the pain in his shoulders. His arms are twisted back at entirely the wrong angle, causing a dull burn all up his forearms and back. The second thing that comes back to him is his sight.

The floor he's slumped over is cold, faintly damp concrete - the rough sort that was found where people weren't suppose to go. Tilting his head up sends a pulsing headache shooting through his temples, but the sight around him puts the ache far out of thought.

There's a wall a few inches from his face. He can feel something like a pipe, or metal bar against his back. It takes some effort to get his feet under him again, and stand up properly - which takes a lot of pressure off his arms, thank _God_. Twisting around reveals the edges of a hallway. He can see the edges of pipes disappearing into stone above his head. For lack of a better term, it looks like someone tucked him behind an array of pipes, in a corner.

There's a part of him that goes something along the lines of _well that's an odd place to put a kidnapped child_ and the other part of him that loudly smacks the first part aside with a heart-attack inducing mental scream of _TOMMY_.

Tommy, lying bleeding on the ground, his arms wrapped around his stomach. Tommy (called the retard, _never_ the retard, he was barely even _sick_ these days) who had leapt to defend him with his knife, and had been shot down before he'd probably had a chance.

The first couple of tears hit his nose, and then they're flowing like a dam's been broken, racking his chest with thick sobs and shaking his whole body. He doesn't even hear someone approach, until an open hand connects hard with the back of his head.

"_Shut the fuck up_." Comes a deep snarl, and Bruce looks up into the eyes of a slightly balding, overweight man. "Or I'll whip your hide raw, you little shit."

A tiny (big) part of Bruce waits a split second to see what Tommy's reaction will be, before remembering that _Tommy's not there_. So he does the responsible thing and tries to turn the waterworks off.

The man gives him one last stink eye, before wandering back off from wherever he came.

Bruce chewed on his lip, trying to stifle the sobs that are still struggling to get out. His knees were feeling weak as well, but after slumping over for so long, he had the horrible feeling that sitting down was not an option.

Somewhere above him, water dripped down, smacking onto his face right above the nose.

_Tommy slumped against his back, bleeding from the head, blood dripping down Bruce's face, possibly dead dead dead-_

Bruce closed his eyes, and prayed to whoever was listening that his brother was alright.

* * *

Tommy came to in his father's office. There was a haze to his world he recognized as belonging to having a good deal of drugs in one's system, and the thought of _back in the hospital, alone for now_ was almost enough to make him drift off.

Except there was his mother's voice somewhere close by, telling him to get up. And where there was his mother and father, there was sure… to be… Bruce?

"Bruce!" The word managed to make it out of his mouth at almost the same time his sight returned. For some reason, his vision was rather off.

"Finally." Hissed someone in the background, but it was shoved away as his parents came into view, both looking equally terrified.

Martha's "where's your brother?" collided rather solidly with Thomas' "how much pain are you feeling?". Both of them looked at each other as Tommy tried to form a response to both questions.

"Tt- took him." Came a wheeze, from seemingly nowhere, but supposedly his lungs. "Men with a car, and gg-guns-"

There's a memory that scratches at the edges of his mind, and something tells him to lift his hand, but his father grabs his wrist and pins it back down against the bed. "Did they say they were with anyone?" Martha demanded, leaning closer. "Did they ask for something, did they hurt him?"

"Two of 'em put him in t'car." Tommy managed to croak, the image still burned in his head. "Left th-three w'me."

"What did they say?" Martha hissed again, Thomas' face going pale in the background.

It took effort to meet his mother's gaze.

"Said you did'n know your place." His throat was having trouble forming words. "Ss-said if y'want'd to see B-Bru aa, aa-ggg-ain to-to…" Tears were making the room spin and blur, distorting everyone's face.

"_Thomas Junior, you will tell me what they said._"

"Give up." He gasped, hiccups beginning to shake his chest. "Tto-mmm-orrow eevvee'in. Narr-oows Bb-brrid- Hem-Hem-_Hhh-emming-ing Wwway_." He felt, more then saw his father wrap his arms around him. It was a rare thing that drove Tommy to accept any sort of physical comfort that wasn't Bruce, but he did it now.

"M'ss-orry." He choked over his father's shoulder, into Martha's calculating, stone-cold face. "I-I-I I ccc-ouldn't pro-prott-ect hh-imm."

"It's not your fault, Tommy." His father said, instantly on the tail-end of Tommy's sentence. "It wasn't your fault at all."

Something in Martha's eyes hardened. She didn't say anything.

* * *

There is a clarity that arrives in Tommy's mind shortly after his drugs begin to wear off. It's unlike anything he's ever experienced, something sharp and cutting-

(_Everyone's a bit broken, Tee. The trick is using all those sharp edges to your advantage._)

One of his eyes has a bandage over it. The hand on that same side is wrapped in gauze - the other arm is strapped to his equally bound chest in a sling. His ribs burn when he sits up, and he can barely flex his fingers, but he can stand mostly straight.

His brother is gone.

His brother has been taken.

Nothing of Bruce is in this room, nothing except his ledger that someone must have picked up. Parts of it are stained with blood (his or Bruce's? He can barely remember) and one cover had been bent back. The pen that normally travels with the book is also missing, though Bruce always keeps his pen tucked inside the inner breast pocket of his jacket, so it's possible he still has it.

He doesn't know where his parents are, doesn't know where anyone is. There isn't a window in this room, but he can guess that it's late.

Bruce has been gone for hours.

It takes so much effort to cross the room, to shuffle the ledger off the edge of the table and into his arm's sling. Putting on his coat (defiantly stained with his blood) makes muscles he didn't even know he had burn. His knees tremble, but he stays upright.

Selina's apartment is four blocks away. She's the only one who has the sort of mind necessary to decipher Bruce's notes. She knows all the streets that Bruce used to mark locations and make crude maps.

Tommy knows every person Bruce has ever spoken to. He knows his brother better then he knows himself.

He has to find Bruce.

* * *

Every time Bruce thinks the tears are over, he suddenly remembers something else to be scared of, or for, and the whole thing starts all over again. It's been hours now, long enough that everything's a bit sore from standing still for so long, and he's begun to have the pressing need to go to the bathroom.

Every once in a while, someone will walk by - heavy footed and loud. On one or two occasions, they stop to peek into his hiding spot, making mocking comments about how helpless he looks, or the occasional remark about his mother.

It makes everything twist awfully inside, some part of him that screams to make them all pay, and the other half that whispers _we're just a kid, there's nothing we can do_.

Taking care of Bruce has been Tommy's job for far longer then Bruce can remember. He's always operated with a partner.

And his mind feels like it wants to shake itself loose with the thought of never seeing his brother again.

He's just about to start crying again, when there's the faintest sound of someone moving behind him. He goes still, holding his breath in as much as he can, willing the tears not to fall, when a thin voice breaks the silence.

"Why did the cookie cry?" The stranger's voice is young, a bit raspy and nasally, not distinctively male or female. There's an edge to it almost like a lisp, and a bit of a tone that sounded curious.

"What?" It's the first time Bruce has spoken since this whole thing has started.

"Why." There's another noise, someone moving closer. "Did the cookie." Something brushed lightly against Bruce where he couldn't see.

"_Cry?_" Acid green eyes are suddenly in his range of visions - wild eyes half-sunken into a bruised and dirty skull.

It's a child. Probably not much older then him, though it's still impossible to tell whether or not said child is a boy or a girl.

The child wiggles in place, licks its lips and opens a mouth with too few teeth, tripping over the punchline in an effort to deliver it quicker. "Because his mother was _a wafer_ for too long."

Bruce was never that fond of wordplay, and it takes him a moment to sort it out, during which time the child's face fell.

"You didn't get it." The child said sadly.

"They're trying to-to hurt my mm-uumm." Sobs begin to hiccup from Bruce again as it all comes back, and the child looks alarmed as he started to cry.

"No, no, don't do that!" The child's hands flutter for a moment, before it settles for awkwardly patting Bruce's shoulder. "Jokes are suppose to make you laugh, and laughter makes you feel better! Um, um. Hey, have you heard about the fire at the circus?"

"No…"

"It was pretty _in tents_."

The child grinned, something that revealed more teeth then Bruce ever wanted to see in a smiled.

"Hey, what's all brown and sticky?"

"Um…"

"A stick. Get it? It's _sticky_."

Something that could have been a smile tugged at the corner of Bruce's mouth.

"Ha! It worked!" The kid did a small dance on the spot, obviously pleased, before calming down and running dirty hands over an equally dirty shirt. "My… my name's Jackie. What's yours?"

"Anthony." Came the small whisper.

The child crept closer again, and now Bruce could see Jackie was a boy, with one or two inches over him, but much thinner and less stocky. He also got close enough that for the first time, Bruce could see two wicked scars, one on either side of his mouth, the flesh red and swollen and obviously infected. Both scars curved a bit, uneven and crooked, going from the corner of his lips almost to his ears on either side

Jackie must have known that he saw, because he withdrew slightly into the shadows after a moment. "Sorry. I know they look gross." The slight lisp in his voice made a fair bit more sense now.

"I've seen worse." Bruce said, a brief flicker of _father's hospital mother's first victim gang wars bullies_ racing past quick enough to confirm that stitched up cuts were not all that bad.

Jackie lifted a hand, ghosting it over his cheek. "Probably." He whispered, and Bruce could hear the hidden pain in his words.

"Look, Jackie-"

"Jacob."

"What?"

"My name's Jacob."

"Yo-You said Jackie."

"Now I'm saying Jacob."

"… Okay. Jacob, can you help me-"

"_No!_" Jack-_Jacob_ leapt away from him, almost out of Bruce's line of sight. "I can't, I can't, I'm sorry-" There was the sound of footsteps down the hall, and the boy threw a panicked look over his shoulder. "M'sorry, I have to _go_."

And gone he was, leaving Bruce just as helpless as before.

* * *

It took eleven minutes for Tommy to pull himself up the tiny fire escape that Selina's building had - after taking almost an hour to make the trek to her apartment. Every single muscle he possessed was shaking in exhaustion, and he'd almost lost the ledger at least twice, and dropped it countless more times.

Selina was waiting at the window, eyeing him with an expressionless face.

"I lost Bruce." Were the first words tumbling from his mouth.

"Well, he's not here." She returned, moving aside so he could pull himself though the window.

"I know that!" He hit the floor with a painful bump. "He was _kidnapped_."

"How did you let that happen?" Selina was grabbing his jacket a moment later, lifting him up into the air and giving him an ugly expression. "You're suppose to _protect_ him- you're bleeding."

Tommy lifted his bandaged hand from his stomach to show a blood-soaked shirt and the swabs of cloth beneath it. "S'not that bad." He muttered, and gingerly pressed against it to show how little it hurt.

"Was this from the kidnappers? Or from your mother?" Selina dropped her hold.

"What? No! It was from the kidnappers, why would you say that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Selina picked up one of her cats, and scratched its ears without meeting his gaze. "You're considered too stupid to have a real job, and too violent to be around anyone else - so they made sure that you would always be watching your brother, whose smart enough to actually do something. You love him so much, they expect you to kill the first person who touches him."

She met his unbandaged eye then. "You've failed."

It felt like someone had tied a noose around his neck and was pulling it tight. He sank to his knees, feeling the tremble go up and down his spine.

She just sat beside him. Selina had never been one for human comfort.

"I have his ledger." Tommy whispered, having shaken a good chunk of his grief away. "I know everyone who owes him, all his informants. We can find him."

"We can find him." He repeated, and Selina nods with him.

* * *

Tommy knows that Bruce has nightmares. He even knows that Bruce has a lot more of them then he ever tells anyone.

They're easy to spot - Bruce sleeps still and silent, until something digs itself into his dreams, and they slowly go dark. He'll begin to toss and turn, make small noises and grab onto things, and wake up a few minutes later. He'll rarely say anything afterwards, but Tommy gets bits and pieces.

There's a monster in Bruce's head. Something that stalks, prowls, herds and hunts him. It has something to do with bats, but that's all he knows - Bruce never describes it.

But he'll say things, some times. Once he wakes up and says the creature tried to convince him to join it. Several times, he bolts out of sleep with _it was chasing me_ falling from his mouth.

Only once do they have a serious conversation about it.

"It wants me to do something." Bruce's voice is thin in the air. "I don't know what and I don't know why. It used to make me try to follow it, but now it's changed. It's _herding_ me towards something dark. It's getting smarter."

"Its getting smarter." He whispered again. "And it's getter bigger."

* * *

They dragged Bruce out of his hiding place long after the boy - Jackie? Jacob? - had disappeared. Someone let him use the bathroom, and someone else tipped a bottle of water down this throat, and then he was taken into some sort of meeting room.

His hands were still bound behind him, and it made it uncomfortable to sit down on the sofa someone deposited him on, but he tried not to let it show. He'd long since stopped crying as well.

It's a group of people - he vaguely recognizes some of them as people who'd taken him, or he'd seen in passing since getting here.

He had a horrible feeling that if they were taking this little care, they were probably going to kill him.

A man in an unbuttoned dark blue silk shirt sat down next to him, and the same overweight one that had told him off earlier sat on the other side. Silk Shirt cleared his throat, and swung an arm over Bruce's shoulder, giving the boy a wide smile that sent shivers down his spine. "It's Andy, right kid?"

"Anthony." He whispered back. There were some people moving around away from the couch, one of them had a Polaroid camera and was checking the film.

"Anthony! Nice good Christian name. Italian right?"

"Aa-actually, it's LL-Latin." There were times when Bruce's knowledge did not come in handy. "An… Antonio is the Italian and Spanish version."

A couple of people looked up and stared at him, as if that was honestly the last thing they'd expected anyone to say.

Silk Shirt laughed, too loud and too close to Bruce's ear, and squeezed the boy's shoulders in a too-tight one armed hug. "Well, well, well. Ain't you a little smartass." He shook Bruce lightly, and turned to grin, a bit too close. "You wanna know what we do to smartasses around here, kid?"

Bruce shook his head _no_, and winced when another too loud laugh bounced into his ears.

"Well, I'm afraid you're about to find out. Hey Carlos, stop dicking around with the camera and come take some pictures." Camera man - apparently named Carlos - stepped forward and seated himself on the edge of the coffee table before the sofa.

"Now, Tony, Tony, Tony. You mind if I call you Tony?" Bruce had half a mind to say yes, but decided it might not be best. "You see, your mummy, she ain't playing very nice. She found some of our guys only an hour or two ago, and had the whole lot shot like dogs. That's real bad for business, as you can imagine." There were some murmurs of agreement from the crowd gathered around.

"So you're going to help us convince her that maybe she should do what women should do, and start listening to the men in charge. I don't care if she listens to us, I don't care if she crawls back to that spineless worm you call a daddy - wouldn't be surprised if that man was missing his balls, with the crap he lets his woman get away with - or if she jumps off a bridge. She's bad for business, and bad things need to go away, Tony-Baloney."

"I-I dd- dddonn-t-"

"Did we say you could speak?" The overweight man on the other eye gave Bruce an ugly look.

"Now, now, the kid's pp-ppp-probb-bbabbb-ly-ly _scared_ out of his mind. S'not his fault he doesn't know how he's going to help yet." Silk Shirt grinned at Bruce again. "But don't worry your cute-lil knucklehead 'bout it, kid. All you've got to do is stay still, while we take some pictures. That's all! If you behave, you probably won't even end up with a scratch."

Silk Shirt got up and started speaking quietly to the man holding the camera, and everyone else started moving as if to their final position before whatever was about to go down happened, leaving only the overweight man next to Bruce.

Out of the edge of his vision, Bruce spotted the boy from earlier once again, standing nervously in the corner. In proper lighting, his face was more scarred then it had looked before - the scars looked only a few weeks old, and Bruce could still see scabs of infected tissue, even from a distance. And instead of what had looked like indents from stitches, there really was black thread still imbedded in the swollen wounds. It wasn't the only scar either - his thin face was decorated with them, like artificial smile lines. There was bruises hidden under cloth and dirt, and his nose looked a bit crooked, like it had been broken once. He was thin enough to almost disappear into his corner.

"Aaaannnddd… action." Came Silk Shirt's purr, and Bruce suddenly found himself pulled uncomfortably into the overweight man's lap. There was the click and whirl of the camera taking its first photo.

"So, Tony. We're just going to take some of your cloths off - nothing to worry about." Silk Shirt's voice had the fakest soothing tone Bruce had ever heard, and it didn't take the edge of the feeling of his buttons being torn right off as someone's hands began to undress him. The camera began a steady stream of clicking, no doubt to capture his horrified expression, as the fat one began to rub his hands up and down Bruce's legs.

A part of him was dimly aware of what was happening - he'd heard stories, mostly from the various gang members who worked for his mother, and Selina had no end of caution advice - but nothing he'd ever been told could have prepared him for it. There was the freezing need to scream for Tommy and the equally loud desire to punch the fat one.

He settled for a combination of both, slamming his bound fists deep into the fat one's groin, and hauling himself forward as he screamed, a wordless thing that he hoped communicated the exact level of murder he wanted to commit. Such thoughts, however, disappeared as he smacked his forehead right on the edge of the coffee table as he fell.

"You little _shit_!" The fat one screamed, staggering up with one hand cupped to his crotch, bent over slightly at the pain. "I'm going to fucking rip you apart-!" His free hand came down as a closed fist on his cheekbone. The second blow came as a kick to Bruce's ribs, knocking the air right out of him.

Through a breathless, head-throbbing haze, he was dimly aware of the third and forth kick, and saw the briefest glimpse of movement, before the fifth kick connected with his head and the world exploded in a blaze of sparks and flashing darkness.

"Shit, Paul!" A voice was yelling something from very far away. "We already beat up his brother, that's why I wanted you to do _your thing_. I need him unharmed."

"He punched me in the dick!" Somewhere, someone giggled - and it might have been Bruce, but he was honestly floating in a very strange, painful place at the moment.

"I thought you were into that sort of thing?"

"… Well, yeah, but you said not to hurt him, and I want to hurt _someone_ now…"

"… isn't that what that boy of yours is for… …hey kid get over here… _yes you with that fucking smile does it look like we've got anyone else around here to suck his dick for him_…"

One gave him a sixth (seventh? Eighth?) sharp kick, and with that final nudge, he vanished into darkness.

* * *

The fact that Selina owned a bicycle was something that Tommy had not been aware of. If he wanted to get into the technicality of it, he doubted Selina even _owned_ said bicycle, and was more extendedly borrowing it from someone else without the intention of giving it back.

Tommy was not fond of bikes. He'd tried once or twice, when he was eight or nine, only to face-plant into the paved driveway of Wayne Manor. After seeing Bruce whizz around without a care, he'd simply chalked the whole thing up to being one of the hundred thousand things Bruce could do and he could not, and had promptly forgotten about it.

Selina's bike was bringing back a lot of those memories.

"I can't ride a bike." Tommy protested.

"It's a good thing you're not going to then. You're sitting on the handlebars, dumb-dumb." Selina had changed into some black ensemble, complete with pants, jacket and a backpack full of 'tradables'.

"I only have one working hand! And it's wrapped in cloth and plastic, I can barely move the fingers!"

"Get on the handlebars, you fucking pussy, or we'll never find your brother."

Which was how Tommy found himself perched very awkwardly on the front of a bicycle, riding through the deserted streets of nighttime Gotham.

"Remember to jump off if it looks like I'll crash." Selina volunteered from behind him as they made their way towards a half-constructed building that made up the largest of several homeless camps in the area.

"I just remembered, I think I have a couple of broken ribs." Tommy moaned, and focused on trying to stay upright.

* * *

Bruce woke to someone's quiet sobs. He was lying face down on what felt like a mattress, though it didn't smell anything like one. His hands had been rebound, an extra rope going around his stomach to keep his arms pressed against his back. It dug painfully into his ribs.

It took effort to twist his head - it honestly felt like his headache was going to kill him - but eventually, he managed to get the crier into his line of sights.

It was the boy - Jacob - curled into the corner of the tiny room, his face buried in his knees and his skinny arms wrapped around as much of himself as he possibly could. His shoulders were shaking in time to his quiet sobs.

Guilt came crashing down on him, hard and fast and brutal. Jacob hadn't done anything wrong, but he had taken the worst of it, by the looks of things.

And by the sounds of it, this wasn't the first time.

If Jacob (Jackie?) knew that he was awake, there wasn't any sign. Bruce tried to come up with something to say - thank you sounded horrible and sorry didn't sound good enough either.

The memory of the first time they met came back to him, and he cleared his throat.

The boy jerked his head up with a water-thick gasp, sniffing quickly to dry his tears as fast as possible. There were fresh bruises scattered across his face, and one of the smiling scars had been slightly reopened, and was coated with dried blood.

"You know what a kangaroo and a zucchini have in common?" Bruce asked, coughing once or twice to dislodge the dry feeling of his throat. "Neither of them can ride a bike."

There was the finest of twitches in the corners of the boy's grin.

"Um… What do you get from a pampered cow? Spoiled milk. Because she's spoiled rotten- wait, that doesn't sound right."

Jacob giggled.

"Do you know what lawyers wear to court? My dad told me this one. He said it's _lawsuits_. Like the thing, and the cloths. But there isn't really-"

The boy cracked up, wiping the last of his tears away.

"- such a thing as a suit you wear for law. It's just called a business suit."

"You're real bad at jokes." Came out between the last of a few wayward giggles. "It's pretty funny though."

It was the first time since this whole thing started that Bruce smiled.

"So… it's Jacob, right?"

"… Jasper." The boy said. "Name's J- Jasper."

"Okay. Are you oka- do you think you'll be okay?"

Jasper gave a little sniffle, and shifted closer, so he was a bit away from the wall. "Yeah, this happens a lot."

"I'm sorry. It… it was my fault, I should have just let him do what he wanted. Then neither of us would be hurt."

The look Jasper gave him was beyond stunned - it was if (and was highly likely) nobody had ever apologized to him, let alone said they'd be willing to take his place.

"You don't mean that." He whispered, squirming nervously, and shuffling closer to the mattress Bruce was laying on.

"Of course I do. You have been nothing but nice, I wouldn't wish anything bad on you. He- he was suppose to use me, and instead I made him use you instead. I'm sorry, I didn't- I never, _ever_ meant for that to happen."

Jasper just kept looking at him, something softening in his gaze. "You think I've been nice?"

"Yeah. You said all those jokes to try and cheer me up. You didn't have to, and you didn't know me, but you did it anyway. That's what nice people do."

The boy's face fell. "I'm not a nice person." He whispered, leaning against the mattress, only inches from Bruce's face. "I'm dirty and broken."

"That doesn't mean you're not nice. My… my brother's a bit like that." Jasper gave him a weird look, like he didn't quite believe him - and suddenly, Bruce couldn't stop talking.

"When we were little, we got in a car accident, and he hit his head really hard. He was in a coma for a long time - too long, the doctors… the doctors said he might never wake up, except he _did_. But suddenly, he was all different and angry and scared of stuff. He used to bite people, and scream at them and nobody wanted to go near him. My… my parents said that he got hit so hard that it damaged his brain, and he was sort of sick, but sick in the head. And he'd never be the same again."

There's the beginning of tears in Bruce's eyes. "They sent him away, and he was so sad, all the time. Nobody liked him, except me. Everyone said he was too broken to be fixed, but I still loved him."

Bruce smiled at Jasper. "He's still a bit broken and sick, but after we left our old home and he went to live with us, he's started getting better. Sometimes you just have to get as far away from everything as you can, and learn how to use everything you've got. Broken edges are just sharp things - and sharp things can be used."

"I can't go away." Came Jasper's tiny whisper. "They always find me. I've never been anywhere else."

"I know this city." Bruce whispered back. "I know it's language, and it's ways. If you help me, I promise to help you. I always repay favours."

* * *

"Anthony's been kidnapped?"

It had never occurred to Tommy just how many people _loved_ his brother. They'd already talked to well over a dozen people, forming a better and better picture of a large gang looking to expand their territory - and choosing the gang with the woman in charge as their first target. Now it was just the finer details, of finding exactly where his brother would have gone.

Rex was a local mechanic, owning the nearest gas station to the Baypoint gang's hotel. He'd been the fifth person they'd talked to, one of the contacts that Tommy was more familiar with - Rex had a fondness for Bruce that made his little gas station and repair shop a good drop-off pick-up place for payments.

Rex hadn't even let Tommy finish starting to explain, before he'd closed up shop, stored Selina's bike in the garage and put both kids in the passenger seat of his truck as he drove them around to each informative.

Their latest source followed much the same as many before them, a few tears gathering in the old woman's eyes. "But Anthony's such a sweetie… I hope you find him soon, and rip the fingernails off those bastards! Now for information… You said these strangers are trying to expand into our side of the river? Well, let me tell you something, I know an old gaffer, sailed over from England a couple decades before with a nice enough crew, he owns a bunch of the piers in the Downtown area… you know where the Admiral Docks are…?"

And such was the way things went. Selina took to dozing in the cab as they ran back and forth, and a bigger picture began to form. Criss-cross of information started to appear - people talking to sources before they got there. They ran into a mid-level gangster from a neutral group in Midtown, who'd heard what was going on, and shortly after midnight, some of their information started to cross over into Martha's streams of gossip. Around the twenty or thirtieth conversation Tommy had, a shopkeeper said that he'd gotten a call from Martha only a few minutes ago, and he was perfectly willing to relay the information.

Somewhere around dawn, Tommy found himself in Downtown Gotham, deeper then he'd ever been into the city's nastier parts.

"You sure we shouldn't wait for someone?" Even Rex looked a bit tired at this point, and Selina was sound asleep against his shoulder. "Look, kid, it's admirable what you're doing, but you look like hell. How you're going to launch a rescue mission?"

"I'm not." The world seemed broken-glass sharp to Tommy, the pain cutting through any haze. "I know Bruce better then anyone. I know how he thinks, how he plans. I know how he runs. I'm not going to rescue him - I'm going to follow his escape trail."

"Then shouldn't we just wait-" But Rex's words were lost as Tommy closed the truck door behind him. The boy paused only a second, to look up and down the street, before he darted forward and vanished into the shadows.

"Fuck." Rex hissed. "God, if you're listening, let those boys get home okay."

* * *

"I don't know if I can trust you." The boy's latest name was Justin. "You might just escape by yourself, or get me in trouble and I _really_ don't want to be in trouble."

"I know this is hard, but you have to believe me. Look, if you don't want me running off, how about after you untie me, you tie us together - then we both have to go with the other."

Justin squirmed nervously. "I… I guess."

"I promise, I always repay favours." He tried to mimic his father's calm, doctor voice. "If you stay here, if we _both_ stay here, we may very well die. Things are better out there."

"I don't know anyone. How am I suppose to survive?" Justin's voice trembled, but he began to unknot the ropes binding Bruce.

"You can come live with us. My mum is nice, and she helps a lot of people escape bad things. And my dad's a doctor, he's great at his job, and he's never hurt anyone." The sweet relief of flexing his arms forward was a sensation that wouldn't leave Bruce for a long time. "I know what it's like to leave everything behind - but everyone is capable of adapting. It's nature."

It took some effort to stand, but for the first time, Bruce was able to look the boy in the eye, both of them unrestrained. He offered a hand, feeling old confident flowing back. "Come with me, and I promise, I'll show you everything you need to know."

A spark flared in the boy's eyes.

* * *

"Fuck you, Gideon." Selina's hand smacked into the back of Tommy's head with more force then he was expecting.

"You were sleeping." He protested, pulling his jacket closer around him and giving the girl a stink eye.

"Like I'd fall asleep in a stranger's car!"

"This is my mistake, I'm fixing it."

"I know that, you think I want to be involved? Someone's got to carry your knife though."

"I didn't…" Tommy swallowed his words as Selina withdrew Bruce's ledger and an unknown knife from her own coat. "That's not mine."

"It's not mine either." Selina said, and slid it into his pocket. "I can move faster, so tell me where we're going, and I'll scout ahead."

Tommy nodded slowly, and pointed down from their rooftop perch at a non-describe shuttered building a few stores over. "They're in there. I've been watching and I recognized one of the guys who came out and everything. From what we know, they have a large basement area that connects to the sewers. They're probably holding Bru-_Anthony_ in one of the lower levels."

"So, get in, grab your brother and scram?"

"No." Tommy withdrew from the edge of the roof, and started moving for the fire escape. "I know my brother. It's been about twelve hours, there's no way he's still there."

"Your brother's _ten_, Gideon."

"He's also a genius." It took more effort then it should have to climb down the fire escape, and he dropped a bit too loudly onto the pavement. "He'll have found a way to escape, which means he'll be in the sewers."

"If I were him, I'd go upwards. It's much easier to get lost in the sewers." Selina barely made a noise as she jumped down next to him. "What makes you so sure he'll go down instead of up?"

"Call it a hunch." Tommy whispered, and moved for the nearest sewer drain.

* * *

_Jared_ binds the tow of them together with the thinnest strand of rope. They tie each end to the belt loop on their pants - Jared had suggested going around their stomachs, only to find neither rope was long enough, and Bruce had suggested their wrists - only both of them had welts - and in Jared's case, open sores - there. So the belt loops it was.

Jared - _Jim, he whispers, while they hide in a closet waiting for the hallway to clear._ - Jim holds onto Bruce like a shield, narrow fingers digging into his shoulders. Jim is an inch or two taller then Bruce, but Bruce is defiantly wider, boarder in the bone structure. Jim moves soundlessly and quick, but he has no talent for stealth, while that is all Bruce has - the ability to merge seamlessly with the shadows.

Bruce heads down. Takes two flights of stairs and crawls down a ladder into what is likely the sewers.

"This is not out." Jim says, as they stand in the cobblestone tunnel. "In fact, this is the opposite of out. You know they throw bodies down here sometimes?"

"All water goes somewhere." Bruce whispers back. "And they'll never expect this."

He steps forward, and feels the rope go taunt. Jim is still standing by the ladder, looking uncertain in the dim light.

"If I leave, I can never go back." He whispers, something that sounds close to frightened in his voice.

"There's no such thing as going back." Bruce turns around, and softly grips Jim's hand. "Time only moves in one direction, and so do we. We must go forward."

Jim squeezes his hand, and steps forward to stand beside Bruce. "You know my name isn't really James, right?"

"Yeah." The first step sends a shiver through Jim - or James, whatever - and Bruce just steps with him. "My first name isn't actually Anthony. My family has to hide who we are, so I use my middle name instead."

He paused for a second, as they slowly walked down the steadily darkening tunnel. "My real name is Bruce. Bruce Anthony Wayne."

"I won't tell anyone." The boy promises, and they smile together in the dark.

* * *

Thomas calls the phone in Martha's car shortly after the sky's gone dark. "Gideon's not in the office anymore."

"Where is he?" Martha sounds tired - _so tired_ - but he can still hear the worry in her voice. "Was he taken?"

"_No_. One of the staff saw him walk out and _didn't tell me_. He's gone, on his own account."

"He's probably looking for his brother."

"He's got broken ribs, and probably less then one usable hand and eye if we count everything else! We need to send someone after him!"

There's silence on the other end of the line.

"Martha?"

"Anthony is the priority." Came the cold tone. "Gideon will be fine." And the line cut out.

"The fuck." Thomas hissed. "Am I the only sane one here? Lillian! Get my coat, and get a car. We need to find Gideon before he gets himself killed."

* * *

There was a scraping noise behind Bruce.

"James. Can you hear that?" He breathed.

"John." The boy corrected. "And no. What is it?"

There was a faint hiss, followed by the sound of leather rustling. Bruce found it very hard to breath, and a quick look over his shoulder showed the faintest blur of black fur.

"You okay?"

"There's something there." The air just wasn't getting into Bruce's lungs.

"What?"

"A monster."

There's a snarl from behind that sends shudders down Bruce's spine. John is silent.

"I can't see it."

"I _know_ it's there."

John looked behind them again. "It's too dark for me to see."

There was another rustle and this time it was close enough that Bruce began to pick up the pace. "I can hear it, it's _chasing us_-"

With a roar, the creature leapt over head and directionally into their path, wringing a scream from Bruce and forcing them to change route down a side tunnel.

Bruce charged into a full out run, sending them along faster and faster. Every flicker out of the corner of his eyes revealed a flash of wings, the shine of a fang, the quick movements of prowling feet keeping easy stride.

"It's _herding_ us." He choked, after the second or third course change. "It's driving us towards something."

"Then run towards it." John gasped, slightly out of breath from the sudden activity. "Surely it can't be good-"

Bruce ground to a halt. The tunnel was a dead end, a locked grate sealing off the tunnel. A quick look behind him confirmed that the beast was gone.

"Bruce." The boy hissed. "We should go back."

"It's gone. It's just… gone." A quick look around showed nothing of importance. "This was where it wanted us to be."

John was silent for a moment.

"Sorry John."

"Jeramy."

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

There's another pause, only their quickened breathing in the dark.

"I think I heard it." Came Jeramy's hesitant whisper.

"What?"

"I heard… growling noises, just once or twice. Something was moving behind us. I couldn't see anything though."

"You… you heard it?"

"I think so."

Bruce shuddered a grateful sigh, and leaned his head against Jeramy's shoulder.

"I couldn't see it though." The boy whispered back. "It was too dark - what does it look like?"

Nobody had asked Bruce to describe the monster before, and he suddenly had no idea exactly how to describe it. "It's… it's big. I saw it once before, when… when I was six. I fell into an underground river, and it was there. But it's a lot bigger now then it was then. It's… have you ever seen a bat?"

"Only on television."

"Have you seen a gargoyle?"

"Only on television. Think you might be getting a pattern here."

"It looks kinda like a gargoyle. Really big, kinda ugly. But it looks like a bat too - same nose, same ears, a big tail, really big wings. Black fur. Big fangs. It chases me, in my dreams."

"Sounds scary."

"Yeah…" Bruce shuddered again. "Yeah, it does."

The two boys sat huddling together for a moment in silence, ears straining for the slightest sound.

Then there was the sound of a splash, and somewhere - down the tunnel blocked by the grate - a faintest light popped into existence. Both boys sucked in synchronized breaths of shock.

"… Look, I still think we should go back…" A girl's voice floated down the tunnel. And Bruce's eyes widen in shock.

"Selina?" He yelled, causing Jeramy to squirm awkwardly at the noise, and for twin yelps of shock to come from down the tunnel. Splashes was heard as two sets of feet ran through the thin layer of water coating the bottom of the tunnel.

Then the sweetest sound in existence rang down the tunnel. "_Bruce?!_"

It was Tommy's voice. Dear Tommy, sounding exhausted, terrified, but defiantly Tommy slamming himself against the grate and reaching through with one bandaged hand to grab Bruce's jacket and pull him closer.

Bruce had stopped crying hours ago, but he suddenly found the tears coming back with a howl, driving his face through the bars and pressing against his brother's coat. Tommy - never really one for crying - had tears himself, clinging as tightly as he could while Selina muttered to herself in the background about where the lock was.

Eventually, Tommy was elbowed aside and given the flashlight so Selina could pick the lock of the grate. Jeramy eyed them with distrust, and the brothers took the time to calculate each other's injuries in the dim light. Then the rusting door was pushed back, and Bruce was throwing his arms around his brother again, as lightly as he could when there was a groan of pain as Bruce squeezed his ribs.

"I thought they'd killed you." Bruce choked into Tommy's bloodstained jacket. "I thought you were dead."

"I'll be okay." Even now, Tommy was not one for lying. "I'll heal, I am _so sorry, this is all my fault_." Fresh tears came again as his older brother sobbed into his head. "I was ss-ssu-pose to _protect you_."

"You found me." Bruce breathed back. "You found me before anyone else. I forgive you. I'll always forgive you." And Tommy clung all the harder.

"Er… guys, hate to break up the reunion, but who's this?" Selina was standing awkwardly beside Jeramy, who looked confused at two people exchanging affection, artificial smile twisting slightly at his confused expression.

Bruce slowly withdrew himself from their hug, wiping his tears away but still pressed as close to Tommy as he could be. "Oh, right. Everyone meet…"

_Jackie. Jacob. Jasper. Justin. Jared. Jim. James. John. Jeramy._

"This is Jay. I owe him a lot."

Bruce reached out, and gave Jay's arm a light squeeze.

"He's coming with us."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **This chapter is not actually late - I uploaded it on time on Archive of Our Own, but forgot to upload it to and DeviantArt.

This is the longest chapter at 11,700 words. A couple of post-chapter notes;

I know the Joker (who is Jay, for anyone who couldn't figure that out) is not exactly acting like himself at the moment, but keep in mind, at this point in time, he's only about eleven years old, and still very much stuck in a bad place. We'll be following these guys right up to their thirties or whatever, so he'll have plenty of time to develop into the cheesy flaming homosexual asshole with bad fashion sense that we all know and love.

Also, age comparison, for anyone whose confused!

Bruce = 10 (February)  
Jay = 11.5 (?)  
Tommy = 12 (September)  
Selina = 13 (July)

... Which isn't _that_ helpful, but hopefully I'll have a full chart done up soon with years and dates and ages for all the major characters. Stay tuned next week for a gang-war and some pissed off parents. Only two chapters left in **Part 1: The Fall** before **Part 2: Scars From Tomorrow** debuts on August 1st. Key appearances will include everyone's favourite coin flipper, one or two assassins in training, smooches and many, many teenage shenanigans.


	6. PART 1:6 : The Fall

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** My deepest apologies - I didn't actually plan to skip a week, but this chapter gave me a lot of trouble, and by the time I finished it, and figured out the technical difficulties stopping me from posting, it was close enough to this Friday that I simply decided to wait. Then I forgot to post on the tumblr about that.

So sorry - also sorry for all the wondful comments I haven't replied to yet! I've read everything, I'm just slow to respond.

Some violence in this, and chapters to follow.

* * *

"What do you mean _you lost my son?_"

It occurred to Len that he'd never really been in this situation before.

"Well… it wasn't so much like we _lost_ your son, as he was… er… well to be honest, I think he escaped-"

"You took my son hostage, and then he _escaped_?"

Suddenly, that explanation didn't sound as well thought-out as it had in Len's head.

It had been one thing to go into the room to find the Baypoint Boss' son missing, but quite another to find that the bastard brat had apparently either aided in the mysterious Anthony's escape, or had simply followed him. Which stung more then it should - after all, you feed a kid for a decade, you kind of expect him to stick around, regardless of his uses.

Such thoughts quickly filed single order out of his head as the boss - word was her name was Eleanor, but he'd yet to find anyone who called her that - shoved her handgun deeper against his throat.

"Tell me what happened."

"Well…" This part never went over well with parents. "We didn't roughen him up, if that's what you heard - kid fell, hit-his-head-against-a-table-honest-ma'am - we were just going to take some pictures - which we didn't! We didn't get that far, I swear!"

"Pictures of _what_."

Len made a gurgling noise as the gun's muzzle began to cut off a chunk of his air flow. "I-was-just-gonna-have-Carl-touch-'im-a-bit-not-real-sex-that'd-have-left-a-mark-"

The bang of the gun going off made the collective nest of kidnappers jump back in horror, scattering as much as they could as Len fell down, blood already soaking into his silk shirt, head almost severed from the twisted mess that had become his throat.

"I'm going to make this _absolutely clear_. Carl is going to come up here _right now_, or you will all die."

The crowd of criminals very quickly coughed up a balding, sweating, overweight man.

Martha gave him a look that could have frozen hell. "Did you molest my son?"

"Er… Well, no, technically, I didn't. He managed to fling himself off my lap, and hit his head against the table - I swear! I didn't get anywhere!"

"So you didn't rape anyone tonight?"

There was a clear hesitation, as Carl tensed up. "I did not have sex or anything like that with your son, ma'am. Please don't kill me."

"But you _did_ hurt someone."

"It was just the bastard kid, we keep - kept - him around for those sorts of things. It was hardly rape, he's _used_ to it-"

There was a pain-filled yelp, as Martha and two of her thugs simultaneously grabbed the man and forced him to his knees.

"You have two minutes to tell me where that boy is, and anyone else you've got here, before I make sure you're not able to piss without a tube, a bag and a nurse."

"He's gone! Your son took him! Please, I… I'll do anything! Don't-"

A painful, horror filled scream filled the air.

* * *

"Tommy, your _hand_."

The dawn was just beginning to sing, lighting up the sky, chasing away the stars. There was a bit of an edge of a cold wind, but otherwise, Gotham was peaceful, quiet.

Bruce cradled his brother against his chest, the larger boy's head tucked beneath his chin. Tommy's bandaged hand was resting in his smaller palms, the cloth bloodstained and smelling of disinfectant and body fluids.

In the dim light, Bruce's own fingers ghosting across ruined flesh. It had become obvious that the little finger on Tommy's hand was missing.

"I can't really feel it too much." The older boy said, flexing his index finger and thumb a little. "I think dad dug all the bullet fragments out. The ring finger's a bit shorter as well, and I can't move it yet."

"What about your eye?" Bruce doesn't reach up to stroke the bandages there, but he looks at it with a gaze slowly filling with soft tears.

"No idea." Now that Bruce has been found, Tommy has a strong desire to go back to the cot he'd been lying on earlier. "I can't see, and it hurts, but it might just be the bandage. I don't… really remember what happened much."

"Thank you." Bruce breathes it like a prayer. "For doing everything you could." He smiles up at his brother, something beautiful and pure, despite the events of the night. "I couldn't have gotten this far without you."

And just like that, the pain was gone.

* * *

"So your real name's _Bruce_." Selina had promised them a hideout for the night - or day, now - and was quite busy interrogating everyone en route. "As in, Bruce the goose?"

Bruce gave her a sharp stare, and readjusted Tommy, where he was slumped against his younger brother's shoulder. Their newest sidekick was busy running up and down the street, arms spread wide as if to catch the whole city.

"As in, just Bruce."

"I mean, I knew you guys were using fake names and all… but there are about a million Bruces. Couldn't your parents have been a bit more original?"

"Our family has a history." Bruce said simply. "Lots of us were old fashioned."

"And… I suppose there is no hope of you telling me who you were-"

"Not even a little."

Tommy groaned, and they paused while he sucked in pain filled gasps through damaged ribs.

"Bruce! Bruce!" Jay's voice squeaked as he yelled. "Look at this, it's _awesome_."

"We're finding somewhere to get rid of him, right?" Selina asked, eyeing the mystery boy dubiously.

"What's the matter?" Tommy struggled to speak at all, just about ready to crash. "Don't you remember the first time you were free?"

* * *

It is the first time that Jay has tasted the sea.

He can smell the salt lingering in the air and distantly, over a deep blanket of car engines and public transportation, he can hear the waves slapping against Gotham shores.

The sky is beautiful, all blues and purples, splashed with a bit of dark red for full dramatic effect. The sun is only a distant glow on the horizon, hidden beneath a towering skyline.

Bruce is sleeping next to the boy he introduced as his brother. He said he was called Gideon, but his real name was _Tommy_ (this last part whispered into his ear). Tommy was tall, probably older then Jay, a bit underweight, but still stocky in build. He was quiet - so quiet Jay almost forgot he was there a couple of times. Since they'd found their way out of the sewers, Tommy had never once left Bruce's side, sticking so close he was like a second skin or a shadow.

There was something fascinating about Tommy - he shifted awkwardly whenever someone other then Bruce tried to talk to him, or looked in his direction. He refused to be touched (and boy, did Jay try) except when it was _Bruce_. Then Tommy would lean forward, letting his little brother poke and prod and work himself inside like Bruce could tear open his ribcage and crawl right in. He didn't even flinch when Bruce's fingers got at the multitude of bandages.

Jay had known a long enough life to spot real hurt - and he could feel it bleed from Bruce's brother. The lost finger, the hidden eye, the broken ribs - and underneath that, a layer of fresh bruises and scabbed cuts hiding the deepest, darkest secrets of them all - the pain and suffering that was far older then the flesh. He could taste the misery laying across the silent one's skin. Bare misery and violence running like an electric current through his bones.

It made him oddly reminiscent of the time he'd stuck his finger into a power outlet - it'd hurt like hell, but he'd felt the surge. It'd been worth the muscle spasms after to feel that sort of naturalist rage.

_Selina_ was a whole other animal. She was not silent, though she rarely spoke. She was a creature powerful enough that she didn't need words - while even Tommy's body language would shut down, Selina talked through minuscule twitches, and the tiniest shifts of muscle.

She was ever watchful, judgemental, bitter and sharp, but with an edge that suggested she'd gotten over her problems, and since moved on.

Jay sensed many things inside of Selina - but none of them were of the type that would hold her back. He'd never seen that before, in anyone, let alone a girl so young. He wasn't too concerned - unless she started _wanting_ something. There might be problems then.

But Bruce - Bruce was the real treasure. He was young, the youngest there, but there was an age to him, like a resonating beacon. He was made of iron, strong as steel. Jay looked upon him, and saw only one thing.

Bruce could not break. He was indestructible. There was intelligence there - sure. Bravery? Plenty of it. Kindness - love? Enough to spare.

But they were minor things compared to the only true fact that Jay could pick out of his meaty person suit. Bruce had never learned how to break, how to be shattered into a million pieces. There was nothing _wrong_ with Bruce.

He was perfect.

And Jay found himself hopelessly smitten, by this boy who liked his bad jokes when nobody else did, who'd taken him too when he went away - no questions asked! - and who'd given him a gift, when no one else ever had.

A name. Jay had a name. A single syllable that resonated into his core.

Jay was not Jack, Jay was not Joseph. Jay was not the mocking _Julie_ that'd been spat at his tears once or twice. Jay was not the _bastard child_. Jay was new. Jay was free.

He could taste the sea. He was finally free.

* * *

Their party of four was sitting inside the brittle walls that formed their hideaway. Selina dozing lightly against the farthest corner, and their newest addition, Jay, was sticking his head out the makeshift door to get a sniff of the air, paying no attention.

Tommy looked exhausted, a faint trembling in his limbs.

Their rooftop hideaway was secluded enough that Bruce felt no danger of anyone finding them - which was an odd feeling to have. Some part of him assumed that he'd want to rush right back into his parents' arms - to never leave the hotel again.

But he didn't feel the need. His brother was resting, quiet, but not asleep yet. While he was surely hurt, he believed that Tommy would heal. They'd be alright after a fashion.

Tommy beckons him over, softly, slowly. Bruce leans over so his brother can whisper in his ear.

"Be careful of that boy." Comes his thin voice. "I know he's broken, but he's not broken like most people. He doesn't _have_ sharp edges."

"Everyone's got broken sharp bits." Bruce whispers back.

"Not this one." There's a serious look on his brother's face - the most serious he's ever seen. "He's not broken, he's not even shattered. He's been ground into a powder. There's nothing left of the person he was born to be."

"A broken edge can be used. Shattered pieces can be gathered." Bruce's voice was reassuring in the dawn light - almost soft enough to send Tommy to sleep. "Powder can be put in a mould of one's choosing, and remade, like sand into glass. He's _perfect_. I've got big plans for him."

Tommy nodded once, and closed his eye.

* * *

Thomas ran into his wife a few hours before noon. The beaten down gas station's parking lot was filled to the brim with cars and trucks, and a motley group of their employees and allies.

Martha looked worn out, and there were several spots of blood on the sleeve of the wool coat she'd pulled over her suit from yesterday. Judging by the exhausted expression on her face, she hadn't slept at all.

It felt like years since Tommy had stuttered awake, gasping about his brother. Years more, since he'd seen Bruce. By the looks of things, Martha felt it too.

"You'll be glad to hear that our eldest son has apparently ran off to save his brother." The bitterness in his tone had vanished hours ago, as he tracked a trail of contacts and informants that Tommy had apparently spoken to. "Nobody has the slightest idea where he is, but it seems half of the people in Uptown talked to him sometime last night. Him, some girl - Sally? Sarah? Something with an S - and some poor soul they roped into being their driver."

Martha gave a weak nod. "At least he wasn't walking."

The strong desire to be angry about her lack of concern came floating back, and he opened his mouth to say so-

"I found Anthony's kidnappers."

only to close it again just as quickly.

"He wasn't there."

Thomas' blood ran cold.

"They moved him?"

"He _escaped_." There was something like an icy hiss in Martha's voice. "He walked right out. I- I talked to everyone there. Nobody saw him leave. They even showed me the room he was held in - he was defiantly _there_, but nobody knows where he is now."

"Did you check back home?"

"Already called. He hasn't come to the hotel. I've been talking to everyone between the two places-" she jerked her head towards the gathered criminals. "- But nobody's seen or heard so much as a whisper."

"He's wandering around by himself?" Thomas' voice could barely make it above a whisper. "He's only ten, he must be _so alone_-"

"Actually." This was cut in by someone Thomas hadn't met before, a younger man who'd been leaning against a truck. "I'm pretty sure he's with Gideon. I dropped him off in that area last night, and nobody's heard from any of them since."

"You dropped off an injured boy in enemy territory?" Thomas was finding it a bit difficult to breath.

"Actually, he sort of jumped out of the truck."

Now it was almost impossible to breath.

"He was fine when I left him." The stranger reassured both of them. "Selina followed him, and I hung around a bit. I didn't see any trouble in the area, and that boy seemed to know what he was doing."

"They're just _kids_." Thomas whispered. "How can they possibly know what they're doing?"

* * *

"You know what you're doing, right?"

Bruce eyed Selina with a look that could best be described as unsure. It was probably around noon - a good six or so hours after the early summer dawn. Tommy was dead to the world, and Jay was curled into a tight ball, twitching slightly in his dreams every few minutes. The other two were standing outside their hideout, worn dark circles under their eyes. Neither had been able to sleep.

"Look." Selina gestured across the Gotham landscape before them. "We need food, and intel. And probably meds, because your brother is a stupid ass and at least something of his has got to be infected by now. Gideon doesn't like me at all, and… Jay thinks you're swell. It's better if you stay."

Bruce nodded, slowly and carefully. "I suppose. Hurry back, okay?"

"Whatever, Goose. Doodle in your diary, or whatever it is that you do with that book." And the girl was gone, hopping over the edge of the roof and vanishing down some window sill or fire escape.

Bruce let out a deep breath through his nose. His ledger had been returned, now tucked safe and sound next to Tommy. Its pages had been filled with vaguely familiar scrawl, his brother's notes listing all the people who'd help lead him to Bruce the night before.

A warm feeling curled inside of him. He'd never taught his brother how his system worked, but Tommy seemed to have understood it all the same - everything written down was usable, at the very least.

Jay whimpered again in his sleep, a full body shudder that left a chill down Bruce's spine. Jay was still a mystery, his excited chatter having revealed very little about himself. The more Bruce looked, the less he seemed to figure out about the boy. He had a feeling none of the names he'd given the night before were even close to the real one, and the question of his age had been met with a shrug, and a _probably a little older then you_ to Bruce. He seemed to trade words for laughter, giggles and snorts, little chuckles and spontaneous bursts of noise spilling out of him where he didn't feel the need to say anything. It'd seemed to hit such a pitch that it'd quickly worn down everyone's nerves, but Bruce couldn't find himself to care too much.

The boy's humour was striking, in a manner that he couldn't quite describe. It burrowed deep inside Bruce's skin and took root like an invading species. Every time Bruce tried to rip up the roots, they dug in even deeper, as if Jay's very tone of voice was trying to convince the younger boy to let him stay forever.

Another small noise worked itself out from Jay's bundle of sleeping limbs. Finally, Bruce moved over and pressed a hand lightly against his shoulder.

The reaction was instantaneous, a sudden burst of something like an animalistic snarl working its way up from his thin chest, acid green eyes still cloudy with sleep, but wide enough to fixate on Bruce.

"Calm down." He tried to use the deepest tone of voice he had, and pressed down again, knuckles sharp against Jay's bony shoulder.

There was a hiss, and Jay squirmed to rise, angry, or too tired to realize Bruce was an ally - it wasn't clear.

"_Down_." Bruce's own snarl seemed to wiggle its way through Jay's head. "Or you can't stay."

For a moment, Jay was still, the only movement the heaving of his chest as he sucked in deep lungfuls of air. Then slowly, he laid his head back, eyes still sharp against Bruce's.

"Good." A soft brush along Jay's side accompanied the praise. "Just sleep. You were having a bad dream." He sat down next to the older boy, drawing him up against his lap a bit, so he could rest his head.

Jay's eyes fluttered for a moment, and he sucked in a final gulp of air, before settling down.

Bruce stroked a hand lightly through dirty blond curls, and felt the boy slowly drift off to sleep.

Big plans indeed.

* * *

"I've got good news and bad news." It was perhaps the first time that Bruce had ever seen Selina nervous.

"Good news first?" Tommy said, voice hoarse from sleep. He was still bedded down in a pile of loose blankets and coats. He looked even worse then he did yesterday, though he'd reassured Bruce several times that it wasn't that bad.

"Well, there's food." Selina gave Bruce the most-likely-stolen backpack so he could divide up shares. "Bad news isn't so great."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm almost ninety present sure that your mum's at war."

There was an intake of breath from Bruce and Tommy, though Jay just looked confused. Selina seemed solemn.

"We had gang disputes before-" It was rare for Bruce's voice to tremble, but it did now.

"This is _big_, Anthony. It seems everyone managed to piss each other off - half the criminals in Uptown are complaining, Downtown's got a grudge because apparently your mum managed to kill off a huge chunk of whatever gang went after you. No word on Midtown, but those pricks always seem to wait to see which way the wind blows. But get this - apparently your kidnappers were connected to the Bratva."

A thin current of terror ran itself through the room.

"Bratva - the Russian Mafia, right?" Tommy shifted uncomfortably. "We've been staying out of the mobs' businesses, why'd they get involved now?"

Jay's eyes had widen to almost comical aside. "Russians? You don't want to get in trouble with those guys. They're cruel as hell and twice as mean. The only thing worse is the-"

"- Is the Yakuza." Selina finished for him. "The Japanese mob. Some say they're sniffing around this, some say they're not. It's hard to tell - they don't have as many contacts."

"Are you sure?" Bruce's hand seemed to go instinctively to his ledger.

"It's a bit murky, but I'm almost certain. I was speaking to the Three Headed Dragons triad near Red Hook. Don't know why the Chinese ally themselves with the Russians, and not the Japanese, but they seem confident that there's trouble brewing."

"Well, that's wonderful." Tommy muttered to himself, as Bruce finally got around to handing out sandwiches. "That means the only mafia not after us is the Italians, and _maybe_ some of the large gangs that ally themselves with them."

"Italians are fickle." Selina said, taking a large bite out of her own sandwich. "_Especially_ Gotham Italians. Wouldn't be surprised if they decide someone's pissed in their pasta too, soon enough. You two need to watch your back."

There was a lengthly pause, as everyone slowly ate and tried not to panic in an orderly fashion.

"Okay." Said Jay after a while. "I got the mafia part, but just incase I wasn't listening - and I was - can someone explain to me why this concerns us."

"Er. Right." Bruce said, a bit awkwardly. "Well, our mum kinda runs a gang…"

* * *

They'd settled in the Downtown area - the third and most eastward of the three, large, interconnecting islands that made up Gotham - the previous night, but now found themselves stuck with the problem of trying to get back to their central base of Uptown, the first island, and most westward. Finger River separated Downtown from Midtown, and Sprang River parted Midtown from Uptown. The Bowery, the poorer area of Uptown, was located right on the banks of the Sprang, and was now the territory of the Baypoint gang.

Picking a route wasn't easy. While they'd taken a car over one of the bridges to get there, it was no longer an option to walk across during the day. The light rail was considered, as the easiest and fastest way, but had been dismissed as too crowed, regardless of the hour.

The best way to get across the city undetected, was to travel by neighbourhoods that were generally avoided. That meant that the easiest way to cross the Finger River was to avoid the large bridges altogether, and go by the smaller bridges to the thin island that was simply called the Narrows - the poorest of the poor of Gotham.

It took too long to prepare. Tommy had to have his bandages changed, when blood started to actively drip from his hand, and then they'd had to figure out how to make it look like he wasn't nearly as hurt as he was. Then, they'd had to gather some form of weaponry - because the sons of bosses didn't walk into rough districts without expecting some sort of trouble - and convince Selina not to abandon them in a bid to look ahead.

Making their way across the pedestrian walkway felt strange to Bruce. The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of activity and chaos, and going home felt like cutting an adventure short.

He didn't entirely want to go into the Narrows either. He'd never been, and even Selina had only the barest knowledge of the streets. The houses, even from across the waterway, looked bleak, chipped and broken like someone had never bothered to finish them. The entire time they were crossing - everyone silent, as they eyed the murky water below, and the cheaply done graffiti - not a single vehicle crossed over or from the slums. The only activity was the rattling of the light rail - a train crossing the river in a fraction of the time - a bit over to their right, the tracks high enough over the water to allow small boats to pass through.

"Maybe we could find someone to charter." Bruce said hopefully, as they were a hundred feet or so from their first destination. "Go up the Gotham River, between us and the New Jersey shore? There's some small docks in the Bowery."

"I'm not getting in a _boat_." Selina sounded scandalized. "And we're almost there. Just act like you belong, alright? And don't fall behind. Or draw attention to us. In fact, don't even look at anyone."

It might have just been Bruce's imagination, but it felt like the very air swallowed them as they crossed onto cracked pavement. He very suddenly wanted this adventure to be over.

* * *

"Vy Eleonora?" The deep rumble of the Russian's voice grated on Martha's nerves more then usual. She _hated_ involving herself with the upper tiers of Gotham's crime syndicates.

"Someone translate." She said warily, giving the man a look she hoped conveyed the exhausted, fraying patience and long day she had.

"He's asking if you're Eleanor." Her translator had been picked up somewhere along the way. The woman was slight - knew her boys, somehow, Martha didn't really _know_ and boy, was it getting to her how many people knew Bruce - and might or might have not worked for Martha, but it didn't matter.

"Yes." She said, looking directly at the Russian this time. "I am… Eleonora."

"Da." The Russian nodded. "U menya yest' slova iz vashikh mal'chikov."

"He… he says he's heard something about your boys."

Martha's sharp inhale of breath must have made it very clear she wanted to hear what he had to say.

"Chetvero detey zmecheny v Downtown…"

"Four kids spotted Downtown…"

"Dvukh mal'chikov, sootvetstvuyushchiye opisaniye vashikh synovey."

"Two boys matching the descriptions of your sons."

"Ya ne znayu, kuda oni poshli."

"He doesn't know where they went."

It was the same damn thing Martha had heard from a dozen other people.

"Does he know which way they were headed?"

There was a clear hesitation there, before the man responded. "Narrows."

"Fuck." Came a hiss from behind Martha. "If they don't get into trouble there, they're bound to run into it on the other side - that area of Midtown is swarming with Yakuza." Martha didn't bother turning around to see who'd spoken.

"Thank you." She directed it at the stranger. "Why are you doing this? Aren't you… a part of the Bratva?"

The answer doesn't come for a moment - though it looks like the man wants to run, and fast.

"U menya dva syna sebya." He finally says, quickly, then turns and is gone, as quickly as he came.

"He said he has two sons of his own." The translator almost whispered - something painful in her tone.

Martha sucked in a painful breath - let it out - and turned to her ensemble. Thomas was barely visible, sitting in the back seat of a car. He hadn't really been talking to Martha much since they'd combined their efforts.

"Move out. We're heading to the Narrows."

* * *

When Tommy was five, he killed a man with his teeth. When Tommy was eleven, he stabbed a man for trying to shoot his family.

Tommy was almost thirteen. He had the horrible feeling he was about to kill again.

He didn't have any of his knifes - he'd had one, the day before, but it'd either gotten left behind at the hotel, or at his crime scene. Selina had given him a knife (but it isn't his, because Bruce didn't give it to him) and still, it feels wholly inadequate, being faced down by three (he was beginning to hate thugs that came in sets of three, _honest_) unknown assailants that were sprouted something along the lines of _people are looking for you kids_.

There was panic, sure - more panic then there had been before, because now he'd lived through the time before this - but at the same time, some sort of loose haze had settled down upon him, angrily insisting that _TEARING ATTACKERS LIMB FROM LIMB WAS A SWELL IDEA_.

If the thugs ever gave their names, or the names of the people they were working for, Tommy didn't hear them. Heat flooded him, and he very nearly gutted the first one that tried to make a grab for Bruce.

The second almost screamed, as he watched the first fall down. Selina moved quicker then he'd ever seen _anyone_ move, and latched onto his throat, somehow managing to work her whole body up so her feet were pressed against his torso. It was a very impressive balancing act, and brought the second down by the force of a large preteen girl suddenly unbalancing him.

The third had time to react. He dodged Tommy - easy, because something in Tommy's veins was singing about the smell of dying - and tried to swat Jay out of the way.

Tommy had seen plenty of people hit other people. He'd seen plenty of them hit kids. The distinctive reeling that always occurred afterwards - the rocking back and forth as the victim stumbled - was one almost ingrained into his memory.

And yet, Jay did not stumble. The force of being slammed with an open palm certainly moved him - his whole body lunged back, though his feet never seemed to shift - but he _didn't fall down_.

The howl that echoed from the third a moment later revealed Jay's key strategy. He'd certainly been hit, but unlike most, too stunned to do anything about it, Jay had latched on, teeth snapping down with ease.

There was a feral look about the boy - enough that it almost shoved Tommy right out of his fiery haze. Something wild in those huge eyes, something that sang _yes, yes_ to the tune of the blood pumping through Tommy's veins. He rocked back on his heels, using the momentum to swing towards the man, and then bit down even harder.

The third stumbled back a moment later, minus two fingers. He stumbled, once, twice, and was gone, down a side street or into a building, Tommy didn't care.

Jay spat out his prizes, blood soaking his chin. He grinned, not at Tommy, soaked in mental blood, not at Selina, crouching like she was about to run over her unconscious second, but at Bruce, who hadn't moved even a twitch.

He grinned with all his teeth - something that pulled the twisted scar tissue into horrifying new shapes. One of the stitches, the one closest to the left corner of his mouth, had snapped, giving his lips a slightly wider yield then normal. It was manic, it was _dangerous_.

Bruce dropped a hand on the taller boy's shoulder.

"You did good." He said, simply, surely.

And something that could only be _happiness_ appeared on Jay's face.

It made Tommy suddenly unspeakably angry.

A gurgling cough focused the four of them onto the first victim, laying on the pavement, apparently bleeding out.

Tommy's knife hadn't gutted him - not completely. There wasn't the bitter smell of ruptured organs (something Tommy had smelled only once, in the hospital when a particularly disturbed patient had sliced another open with a homemade shiv), but there was blood _everywhere_, soaking into the rough stone and staining fabric. The man had gone into shock already - sometimes it happens fast, sometimes it doesn't happen at all - and isn't even aware that he's slowly dying.

Selina's victim is out for the count, but otherwise quite unharmed. Jay's bitten one will heal, with time.

This one will die.

Bruce moves slowly - like a curious animal, head crocked to the side, eyes barely even blinking. He circles, purposefully, and then looks up at Tommy, still frozen, because it's starting to hit him what he's _done_.

"I…" There's words on Tommy's tongue that might be apologizes, or defending attacks, but he takes a closer look, at the smooth shapes of Bruce's face.

There is not a hint of judgement in his eyes, in the set of his lips, in the edge of his jaw or the curl of his hair. There isn't sadness, or fear, or hurt or _anger_ and it's deeply terrifying. He finds his lungs just won't take in the air that he needs them too, he can't seem to make anything _work_.

"You shouldn't let him suffer."

Selina blinks, like part of her has suddenly realized how absolutely, one hundred present _insane_ everything is. Jay sticks a quick tongue into the corner of the de-stitched scar tissue of his smile, like something tastes wonderful.

Bruce hasn't changed at all. He's the same boy that Tommy held a few hours after he was born. He's the same boy he threw himself over when their car was hit, the same boy that he's laughed with, slept beside, _loved_ unconditionally since the very first time Tommy saw his lungs expand and take in a gulp of air, red newborn face scrunched in a silent display of displeasure at the new world he'd been thrust into, and every single moment since then.

For the first time, having watched his father sweep aside murder and horror like it didn't matter, having watched his mother become ruthless because she wanted to, or because she always was and had only now decided to show it. Having looked his own face in the mirror for years and heard the scribbled words from a hundred doctors and nurses and specialists, all telling him he was _wrong_.

For the first time, he looks at Bruce, and realizes that maybe, just maybe, it isn't just his father with a bit of wrongness, and his mother with a lot and him, built of it like a sandcastle on the shores of hell with wrongness and strangeness, who might be a little bit messed up. That something might have bled into Bruce's makeup, while he watched and learned, from this strange little world he'd been born into.

Maybe Bruce had wrongness. Maybe Bruce had a bit of his father's ability to just _look away_ and his mother's talent to _make bad choices_ and had combined them into something new and different that didn't really care, didn't really show how much it just didn't care.

Maybe Bruce had just told Tommy to kill a man, and before Tommy to think, what this meant, maybe he should _tell someone_, the knife's buried in the man's throat, his fingers - his fingers? Had he moved? - wrapped around the hilt.

The man gives a final cough, and his heart stutters, stops. Tommy's fingers don't work well enough to let go, or pull out the knife, so he sort of stays there for a moment, wondering _what the hell he's just done_.

Bruce steps forward. Bruce wraps his smaller fingers around Tommy's slightly bloodstained hand, and pulls it and the knife away. Bruce pries the blade away, and wipes it clean. Hides it back in whatever pocket Tommy had it in before.

Tommy sucks in one shaking breath, lets it out. Blinks, and refocuses on his little brother.

Bruce smiles, soft and kind. Jay has somehow found his way into his side, tucked loosely inside Bruce's shadow and looking at Tommy as one predator would look to another.

There's still a little anger there - that Bruce had _praised_ what was no doubt a little monster (ignoring entirely how much of a monster Tommy might be) - but the elder brother can't find it in himself to care too much at the moment. Jay doesn't have the wrongness that breeds inside of any of the Waynes. That's special. That's something that lives in Tommy's heart, and must circle the arteries of Bruce's too, but it is nowhere else.

Selina rocks back on her heels for a moment - the ever-present desire to flee obviously taking ahold.

"You are all obviously fucking crazy." She declares, eyeing them all, every last one of them.

The three boys give her a collective stare, several ranges of _and what are you going to do about it_ clear on their faces.

"I might be a little into that." She announces next. "Want to dump the body in the river?"

* * *

Thomas has been connected to the deaths of three people during his life. Two had been on the operating table - one via loss of blood, another by cardiac arrest - and one in the hallway between the ambulance bay and the emergency operating room, the lack of oxygen from two simultaneously punctured lungs and a bad heart killing the brain long before the heart stopped beating, even with his hands still struggling to keep the warm body alive.

He has watched his wife kill three times. Once, over a year ago, the man whose place she took. Twice more, today.

He knows she's killed more then that - at least once, during a shipment raid, and several times earlier when she'd found the gang that had kidnapped their youngest. But he hasn't _seen_ it, and that counts for something. Plausible deniability, or something of a similar nature.

Or maybe he's still young enough (he doesn't feel young, even though he entered med school early and finished even earlier and had kids before he was really ready and God, he feels ancient, though he's not even forty) to think that if he can't _see_ it, it's not there. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend that he's in the same car that had been in the Wayne Manor garage for years. He can pretend he's having a stressful day at work, he can pretend…

Martha slides into the seat next to him. She rolls the chamber of her gun open, checks the bullets, and then pulls a fresh case out of her coat pocket and starts to reload.

"Thinking dear?" She asks, and the _click click_ almost makes Thomas want to throw up.

"Something like that." He whispers.

If he can't pretend, he'll settle for just having his sons back.

* * *

There's a dead body in the river, and Tommy (Bruce, Jay, who decided, Selina, who suggested) put it there.

There's a dead body in the river and it's (_all_) sort of, his fault.

Bruce's hand is warm in his, soft but a firm anchor to this world.

"I think I'm slipping." He says. They're maybe halfway through the Narrows, and Selina's started to get _that look_. Maybe someone's following them - maybe they didn't cover their trail right.

"I've got you." Bruce has never slipped in his life, sure-footed and ever-so-carefully, like nothing's ever touched him.

(Though Tommy is sure, _something_ has poisoned his brother.)

"It's almost over." He sounds so _sure_, like someone with knowledge of these sorts of things has told him so. Or has Bruce _willed_ that it will be over soon, and thus it must be so?

"Almost." His head's starting to hurt, the bandage over his eye feels like it's burning. There hasn't been so much as a shift in the shadows from that eye - it seems like a bad sign.

Selina's shoulders go up. He can see the fine movement of her head, signalling that _someone is there_.

There's a rabid look in Jay's eyes. There's still spots of blood on his teeth and his fingers _twitch_ every now and then, like a dog that's gotten a taste for meat, and can smell it again on the air. That lightning quick tongue goes out, pokes the open gap between the two lines of skin, licks the open wound, where Bruce had stroked a thumb and made some murmured promise to restitch, repair.

Bruce does not acknowledge, when footsteps come into his range of hearing. But it doesn't matter. The blade in Tommy's pocket itches. His brother is quite possibly very much in danger. The whole damn city might be in danger. Maybe this isn't a turf battle, maybe it's not a gang dispute. Maybe they are really at war, and it's about to tear them apart.

(Once, Bruce had laid beside his older brother, and told him that he made the bad dreams go away, by imagining that his brother was an owl, and simply _ate the threats_.)

Tommy is not sure, but suddenly, as a voice rises, false kindness poisoning the curious tone, he is certain he has talons.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **I am aware that I've been switching tenses a lot, but I've been having trouble spotting it - does anyone want to beta this story? I'd much appreciate it.


	7. PART 1:7 : The Fall

**AUTHOR'S NOTES: **ALASDFASFASF, I hated this chapter. In my opinion, probably not the best one I've written. But I got to 50,000 words! Woohoo!

I blame all my problems on the fact that I am fuck-ass awful at planning. I can't write outlines to save my life. At least we're out of the backstory part, so I can move forward at a better pace.

* * *

There's been scratches on the radio for days now - something's happening, but for the life of him, Gordon can't put his finger on it.

Whispers, of threats and struggles and vicious hate biting like a scared child. He'll hear about movement on docks somewhere east, and read reports of fights to the west. Contacts have dried up, sharp words of you don't want to get involved in this and the mafias have bristled like fighting dogs readying for battle.

He tries to tell people - writes it out in careful hand and collects what he can, but his supervisor waves it off like flies around a horse.

"Listen, Gordon." There is no doubt in the detective's mind that this man is in the pocket of someone - probably the Italians, who have the most power in Gotham. "You've only been here a few years, you've got to learn when to shut up and let things be. The gangs fight, they take out a few on either side, less work for us. Don't interfere." He narrowed his eyes at the younger man. "That's an order."

Gordon won't lie. He's investigated things long after the cases were closed - the Waynes jump to mind like a lightning flash, that case will haunt him, he's sure of it - but this is far bigger then running some after-hours leads. He'd need teams and equipment he doesn't have and he won't get.

The files sit on his desk like an open wound, taunting him. He can feel the storm growing, electric currents becoming static in the air. There's a war coming, and he doesn't have the slightest idea what to do about it.

He's beginning to think there isn't much in the way of hope for this city.

* * *

They don't kill the second group of attackers - though something inside of Tommy wants to. It's something grey and strange, all curled up inside his stomach and strangling itself on his intestines. It screeches like metal against metal, and he can feel a click click like claws snapping against hard ground. It wants to feast and eat, and claw and tear and they mustn't hurt his brother.

If there's a beast inside of Tommy, there's one inside of Jay too. He can see it in his face, the tightening of muscles.

(He wonders if its as obvious on his face as it is on Jay's.)

It's two this time, and they don't linger. One moves to grab Selina - misses entirely, and seems confused that the girl just isn't there. The second rounds on Bruce, goes for the smallest, the easiest.

Bruce stares at him like he's studying a particularly interesting specimen behind glass, and doesn't even try to move. He doesn't have to, because Tommy converges on his attacker faster then anyone with broken ribs should be capable of moving.

He goes for the thigh, drives the knife home and hears a delicious howl. The hand with the missing finger hooks on easily enough, gripping the man's arm and swinging him off balance.

Jay doesn't so much move as he suddenly grows larger, something dangerously charged sparking inside of him. He's in front of Bruce - was he always there, or is that new? - and pulls himself up to his full height, almost a half-foot taller then the boy behind him. He squares thin shoulders, pulls them back so the man's looking directly into that scarred face, and he screams.

It's not a true scream, but it sounds like one to Tommy's ears. It's a bark of laughter, one long drawn out noise like an animal-

(hyena, his mind supplies, one half-forgotten trip to the zoo tickling his mind)

-its so loud and opened-mouth that three of his stitches snap right then and there, the thread ripped clean away through the flesh on one side, and breaking on the other. Tommy can see every one of his teeth, all perfectly straight and already stained with blood.

His eyes are narrowed, pale skin vibrating with energy. There's no transition between the warning call and when he lunges, claws digging into the man's other arm, a giggling shriek bubbling up to the surface.

The second attacker was already unbalanced, Tommy on one side and Jay on the other. He goes down, sprawling on the ground, a strange look of pure terror on his face, at the animal that's suddenly snapping teeth closed an inch from his nose, mouth still stretched in a mocking grin.

The first one - and how could Tommy forget that one? - bolts right then and there, obviously not wanting to be the next victim to whatever the manic child is about to do.

Bruce says something that might be down, but Tommy's finding it a bit hard to hear. Either way, a moment later, the second is stumbling off and the four kids are left alone.

"Your scars." Bruce's voice is a bit soft, sympathetic as he beckons the older child forward, and puts his fingers on the twisted tissue of Jay's face.

Selina draws in a breath - and Tommy feels like mimicking it, because after what he's just seen, he's ninety percent sure he never wants to go within biting distance of the wild child ever again - but Bruce is entirely unconcerned. He prods the same way he does with his brother's wounds, uncaring but gentle all at once.

(A part of Tommy understands, a bit, what the boy must be like. He's all ground powder and no way of going back, wanting desperately to be recognized just as he is, and here comes a child who doesn't bother with fear, who just wants to know someone's going to be there. Bruce is his, but maybe Jay can be Bruce's, if that makes any sense.)

There's something like a purr that rumbles from Jay's chest. Bruce's fingers are sticky with his blood, but neither boy seems to care.

The thing in Tommy's insides still doesn't like how close the other boy is getting, but the fight has left it briefly satisfied. His working, non-dominate hand is still clenched awkwardly around the blade, dripping with foreign blood.

There's the strangest urge to taste the life in the wet, red fluid.

* * *

They leave the Narrows maybe an hour or two later. Midtown is strangely clean in comparison, and a few people give them odd looks (four children, without parents, looking a bit tired and worse for wear), but mostly they manage to escape notice.

At least until they run into allies.

They almost collide with her, an older woman swiftly turning the corner of the alley with two escorts to keep her safe. There's a moment of Bruce stumbling back - murmuring so sorry ma'am - but then the recognition comes, a bright smile breaking out on his face, relief obvious across his features.

"Anthony!" Her hands are on his face in an instant, pulling him back and forth in the way adults do to check if he's alright. "Your parents has been so worried."

Selina looks a bit displeased - but she always does when it comes to those older then herself. Jay looks like he wants to take a step back, but also like he wants to rip Bruce away.

(It's strangely easy for Tommy to identify with that feeling.)

The woman - whose face Tommy knows, but whose name escapes him - focuses on him a moment later, over his brother's head. There's a bit of a blank (frightened) look on her face. She knows him, and his reputation precedes him, obviously.

"Your brother is with you." There's a false sweetness in her voice. "I heard he got hurt, I'm so sorry to hear that." This last part is addressed to Bruce, she's not looking at Tommy anymore.

(Something skitters inside Tommy's chest. Jay gives him a sideways look that says he's seen the underlying fear in her eyes.)

"There's a phone not far from here." She coaxes. "We'll call your mother and get you home." She offers her hand, and Bruce slides his palm inside hers.

She sends someone off to do that, then bundles all four children into a car. Selina is given a bit of a pitying look that says what's a sweet, young thing like you doing hanging around with so many boys? Bruce is helped up, even though he doesn't need it, his hair patted softly, while she gives Tommy a sideways glance, and simply stands with her hands held awkwardly, like she should help him up, but desperately doesn't want to actually touch him. Tommy just climbs up, and sits right at the door, next to Bruce.

The last one is Jay, judging by whose face, has either never been in a car before, or hasn't had many good experiences with them. The woman eyes him like one might a filthy dog, clearly not wanting the thick, healthy coating of dirt and what might be dried blood covering the boy to get anywhere near her, let alone into her car.

But Bruce takes the choice out of her hands, leaning forward in his seat and giving a short whistle, like one might use to recall an animal. Apparently it's the right noise, because Jay's up a moment later, scrambling across Tommy's lap and falling into the small space between Selina and Bruce.

(The creature - thing - inside Tommy purrs a little as Jay mirrors his own posture, one hand on Bruce's leg like Tommy had on the other side.)

For a moment, there's a flicker of disgust on the woman's face - though why, Tommy doesn't know.

Then she's climbing into the passenger seat, and the driver - the only remaining of her guards - is peeling out of the small alleyway into the main traffic.

It's been a while since Tommy's been in a car - he admits he doesn't like them much - and this one makes him nervous, a prickling along his spine. Jay squirms, eyes blown wide to see everything that he can, but his hand doesn't leave Bruce's leg, and every other darting glance flitters back to Bruce, just to make sure he hasn't moved.

Bruce's fingers stroke Tommy's, a tiny gesture with his hand over his brother's. He leans his shoulder a bit into Jay, silently saying he appreciates both their worrying.

(There is something lovely about that. Bruce does not insist that his worrying is unnecessary. He doesn't wave away concerns, or complain about fears. He lets Tommy do his checks in peace, and doesn't act smart when no threat is found. He's never met anyone who does that.)

He doesn't realize until he's sitting down how tired he is. Everything aches and some things still feel a bit like they're on fire, the heat uncomfortable against bandages that haven't been changed in far too long. The urge to close his unbound eye is quite overwhelming. He just wants to sink back and sleep for a week.

"Shouldn't we go the other way?" The woman's voice is pitched far lower than it should be. It's the first time she's spoke, and it's addressed to the driver - which is strange in and of itself.

"Why?" There's a hint of confusion in the man's voice. "This way is faster."

"The other way is safer." She says, order in her tone. "Take a left here."

There's a moment of hesitation, but the driver diverts, and she settles back into her seat, fingers tapping against the dashboard.

There's definitely a feeling down Tommy's spine now. He knows that most people don't like him very much, but they love Bruce. Why hasn't she asked what he's been doing, or if he's alright? Why hasn't she asked who Selina is?

… Why hasn't she asked who Jay was for that matter? Selina, he knows has been seen around the hotel, but nobody's met Jay before today, yet she'd glossed right over him.

Almost like she expected him to be there.

A quick glance to his left shows Selina looking out the window, Bruce leaning his head softly against Tommy's shoulder, and Jay looking right at him. Something in the younger boy's eyes says what Tommy can feel coursing through him.

Something's wrong. He can feel it, and Jay can smell it.

"Take a right." The woman's voice is almost a whisper, and Tommy can see the driver tense - wanting to disobey, perhaps? Because now he's almost sure this isn't the direction of the hotel at all, and the urge to grasp the door handle and pull himself and Bruce out is almost overwhelming. But Bruce is leaning against him with a weight that suggests he's almost asleep, and there's no way he can get him up and moving fast enough -

There's the screech of tires, as the driver pulls the wheel unexpectedly. The sudden force is almost enough to send Tommy to the floor, except his fingers had begun to grasp the door without him knowing, and it saves him from tumbling completely, though Bruce smacks into the arm he's got in front of his brother, at the shift.

Then there's the smack of metal he knows all too well, even if it's so many years. The sound of another car slamming directly into them.

Someone screams - it might have been him, or Bruce - and Jay, already unseated, is thrown to the floor, smashing his head against the back of the driver's seat and bashing his forehead open from the force.

The ringing in Tommy's eyes subsides a moment later, the shattering of glass falling away and the screaming dimming a bit. The woman in the passenger seat is slumped against the dashboard, her window completely broken and that side of the windshield splintered into a hundred pieces. There's another car embedded into the passenger door, missing the back seat entirely.

There's a shriek as Selina pulls herself up, fingers twitching into claws as she grabs the driver's shoulder. "Drive!" is half-screamed in his ear, and he wastes no time in slamming on the gas and trying to dislodge the other car.

They manage to break apart as both vehicles stutter in reverse, and the other one makes an obvious second attempt, chipping the front bender as their driver does some creative wheel-spinning and gets them pointed in the opposite direction.

The tires barely seem to catch the ground and they're out of the side street and onto a bigger road a moment later.

Bruce looks stunned, a bit shaken and Jay seems to be half-way into whatever state he'd gotten into earlier - similarly twice his size and partially manic, eyes wide, teeth bared, some huffing noise that could've been a laugh rattling in his lungs.

Selina just looks pissed.

"What the hell." The driver seems the most rattled. The woman groans against the dashboard, but doesn't wake up. "What the hell."

"Someone might want us dead." There's a quiver in Bruce's voice. "I think we should get home, and soon."

There was the sound of a crash behind them, and almost everyone glanced over their shoulder at once, just in time to see the car that had smashed into them not make it around a corner, and smack quite delightfully into a lamppost.

"Heh." Jay giggles a bit, and Selina eyes him like he's crazy.

Tommy suddenly becomes aware that Bruce is stroking his arm, giving him a worried look. The sound of harsh breathing slowly begins to come to his ears, and he realizes its his own.

"It's okay." He can see the fear in Bruce's eyes, but for what, he can't tell. "Nobody's hurt."

(There's the scream of metal and pain covering his skull like a second layer of skin.)

But he reaches his hand up to his head, rubs against the scars hidden beneath hair, and checks his fingers. No blood, no cracked skull, no major head trauma I'm sorry but your son may never wake up I'm sorry but your son most likely has brain damage your son may never speak again it is likely that your son will always be this way there is so much we don't know about these sorts of injuries-

Bruce is right up in his face, whispering breathe, breathe. There's other noises, but for the life of him, Tommy can't figure them out.

"It's okay." Bruce is quiet and sure and he manages to make it sound like its the only truth, but part of him just isn't believing. "It's okay, this isn't then, nothing's going to happen. Nobody's hurt."

But he hurts. His hand can barely move and his ribs burn and he can't see out of one of his eyes, and he can barely think over the pounding in his forehead-

He doesn't realize until Bruce responds that he was talking out loud. Selina and Jay are eyeing him in something that could have been fear, or pity, and Bruce looks so sad. The driver keeps looking over his shoulder, and he might be asking something, but Tommy can't hear him.

He wants to bury his head against Bruce and never look up again. He wants to get out of the damn car and back into the bed he and Bruce have been sharing, and never get up again. He wants to sleep without nightmares and for the pain to stop.

He just wants to be okay, and he can't remember what that feels like.

Bruce is crying with him, brothers matching each other tear for tear, shaking breath in perfect sync.

It's the longest car ride of Tommy's life.

* * *

Someone tries to slam a truck into their car somewhere around Midtown. Thomas wasn't expecting it - Martha was.

He hadn't even realized until they're standing on the pavement, staring at the car identical to theirs - but not, thankfully, the one they were in - that someone might, in fact, want them dead.

Martha looks beyond angry. Someone's dragged the driver out of his seat, and has him kneeling before her. She's shaking so violently that she can't even hold her gun properly.

It's ended up in Thomas' hand somehow.

"You want war." She's vibrating with the rage, and it comes across in her voice - all sharp edges and hate curling around every syllable. "You want to control this city? Too bad. It is ours."

"You think you can survive this?" The man looks half dead - sacrificial look on his face saying he was prepared to die if it meant taking out Martha. "You think you can handle the real world? You're a woman. You're a bitch. You can't-"

In that moment, the only person more angry than Martha is Thomas. He's never raised a hand to anyone in violence before, but his arm moves as if of its own account, slamming into the man's face-

Except that was the hand holding the gun. He sees the skin break, as the metal connects, and some part of him goes oh God no, except then the gun goes off, and suddenly his ears are filled with ringing, and screaming and he's stumbling back, gasping in horror.

The man's on the ground, gurgling, coughing, and very quickly dying - shot through the cheek, angle was off, but he can't see an exit wound, which means the bullet probably ricocheted off the jaw and might have hit the spinal cord or embedded itself in the throat-

He hasn't moved, which feels strange, because he can't remember a time in his life that he hasn't rushed to the side of someone injured. The stranger coughs once, twice, and starts to convulse.

It only lasts a half minute. Then he's dead, the brain shut down, or perhaps the airways cut off.

"You had your finger on the trigger, didn't you." Martha's voice is sort of flat. She wipes fresh blood off her hand onto her coat.

Thomas looks down at his own hand, where indeed, he does have his index finger settled against the trigger. Very slowly, he removes it, and settles it onto the trigger guard instead, where it can't do anymore damage. "Um."

"First rule of guns." She pries it slowly out of his hand. "Until the very moment that you're going to fire it, don't put your finger on the trigger."

"Finger. Trigger. Firing. Got it." He says weakly. He's starting to shake a bit.

Something softens in Martha's face. "You did that for me."

"Of course." The answer comes quickly. "Always."

Her mouth twitches, then she breaks out into a true, small smile. He can see the relief in her eyes.

It feels like his heart is simultaneously breaking and healing all at once.

* * *

The woman wakes up half-way to the hotel. She coughs a bit, struggles to get upright, and Selina hisses "hold her" at the same time that Bruce directs the driver into a side street.

"Look, you wouldn't understand." Her eyes are wide, a bit dazed. There's blood on her forehead, not unlike Jay's, that had dripped down and smeared across most of her face. "I- they paid me, you're just kids-"

"You betrayed us." Bruce sounds upset - genuinely, one-hundred percent upset that this particularly person - who Tommy still doesn't know the name of - had tried to have them killed.

"You're just kids." She repeats, like she's trying to tell herself something, though Tommy doesn't know what.

"Who paid you?" It's the driver, and apparently Selina manages to come to the exact same conclusion as Tommy just as quickly, smacking him on the back the head to make it clear this is Bruce's questioning, not his.

Jay giggles again, and this time, the woman's eyes are drawn to him.

"Same people." She whispers, after a moment. "The same ones that… took you, and hurt your brother. They told me to bring you to them, they didn't say they were going to hurt you."

"You listened to them, over us." The agony is clear in Bruce's voice. "You'd side with… with child rapists and kidnappers then with us. We've done nothing but good for you."

"You're a child." She practically screams at him. "What do you know of this world?"

Bruce just looks heartbroken, so heartbroken, and he looks at Tommy, as if asking a silent question.

The knife's in his hand a moment later, and he's hovering over the seat, putting it to her neck as quickly as he can manage. There's another spray of giggles, cut through with a snorting laugh or two, behind him, and the woman almost screams, before swallowing it.

"You just don't understand." Sorrow is laced inside his brother's voice. "What we're trying to do for this city. It will be so glorious, once it's done. If only you'd been loyal."

"I am, I am." She wheezes, fingers hovering over the blade, but not touching it. "I made a mistake, but I swear, I'm loyal."

"I don't think you are at all." Bruce whispers, half to himself. Tommy risks a glance over his shoulder, and sees Bruce leaning back against the seat, one hand laid softly on the manic boy's hair. Jay's half-crouched on his seat, half on Bruce's lap, eyes bright, focused on the unseeable point where the knife touches the woman's throat.

Tommy can see the desire for spilt blood all over his face.

"Where exactly are these people located." He doesn't even phrase it into a question that can be ignored. "I want to know."

"They don't- I don't know." She hiccups a sob, as Tommy twitches the blade. "I swear, I don't know!"

"You talked to them." This time it's Selina, joining in, angry, because though this might not be her gang, it's still her part of town. "You had to have a contact."

"That gang's small." Jay looks up at Bruce as he speaks. "They mostly do work for other people. They don't really have a home-base."

"There was the building I was at." Bruce mused. "I suppose just a local hangout?"

"I was never there." The woman added breathlessly. "I never met anyone over any of the bridges."

There's something in Bruce's eyes for the briefest moment. "But you did meet someone, on this side of the city."

"I-"

"Where." For a moment, his fingers almost clench too tight on Jay's curls. "Tell me, or I'll have my brother cut your throat."

Jay laughed, teeth flashing, wiggling briefly like the surge of yes, yes was too powerful to overcome.

"He's a kid." Came the woman's ghosting whisper, but she flinched all the same. She was still a member of the Baypoint gang, she knew the whispers, of the rumors. Part of her believed, at the least on the surface, that Bruce's brother was capable of some version of violence.

"I… Lll-Lemmars Park-" The words are barely out of her mouth before the car was turning back on, the driver pulling out of their temporary resting spot and beginning to head, presumably in that direction.

"Not too much out that way." Selina adds quietly. "If we're looking for someone, we could find them quickly."

"Lemmars Park it is, then." Bruce said, a tap on Tommy's shoulder sending his brother back to his seat, knife still trembling in his hand, but for now, at least, not in danger of tasting blood.

* * *

Martha kills the third person in his presence. Or the fourth, or the… whatever number she's at. Thomas knows she killed two people earlier today, perhaps more, but only two that he is directly aware of-

(He's killed one. He's killed a man. By accident, maybe, but there's only the smallest hints of regret worming themselves into his gut. It wasn't even an overly killable offense either - for fuck's sake, he knows this world, and plenty of men say horrible things about women. It's cruel, it's not right, but it is not uncommon and it is not the first time Thomas has heard such things. But now he's killed a man.)

Martha kills the third today. He's standing a few feet away - enough to jump in and stop, if he so feels the need.

But he doesn't.

Martha gets words from this one - a young man, almost still a boy, eyes quivering up at the woman who could have been an older sister, or a young aunt or an even younger mother to him. He stutters words about a park and a run-down drug den and whispers please don't kill me like a prayer to some forgotten god.

But Gotham is not a city for gods. Martha still pulls the trigger - because killing is easy.

(He knows that now, and he'll never forget it.)

Some part of him attempts to rationalize it. American didn't believe in kings or queens, but if they did, the Waynes would rule Gotham. They'd have passed the crown down generation, after generation, from mother to son and father to daughter. They protected, they cared.

(They keep their people safe, he heals the wounded, he is still doing his duty.)

Gotham recognized them in kind. He remembers someone telling him this, when he was no older than his own boys. Gotham did not know rules like the rest of their country knew rules. They answered to a silent siren call, something that let even the smallest child look into a Wayne's eyes and know.

There was safeness there. There was kindness and hope, like a warm flame, flickering in the dark, when all other lights went out.

The strong mourned the Waynes, for they had no need for such things. The weak did as well, but not entirely.

He could see it. Their own members, drawn around Martha, not concerned, not worried. Not even scared or fearful or worshipping in the slightest.

Martha was not a Wayne by birth, but she had laid with one, carried two, grown them with her own strength. Taught them and kept them safe, and felt all their glory bleed from them like a wet-painting, dripping her in their colours.

He could see it in their eyes, could see it in the set of her shoulders.

It didn't matter now, that the Waynes were dead. The weak could smell them, like dogs sensing food. They knew hope, growing and throbbing with a new heartbeat.

Killing made hope. Safety, food on the table, made hope. They broke rules, laws, but they were not Gotham laws, not the secret, small things that children of this place knew, even if they'd never been told.

Martha killed the boy-who-was-almost-a-man, and they moved on. A Wayne had said it must be done.

And nobody had thought to argue.

The thought almost drove the guilt away.

* * *

Lemmars Park bordered a residential zone on one side, a commercial one on the other. The area wasn't particularly poor, not rich either though. Kept clean just enough that it wasn't considered dirty.

The sun is going down by the time they get there. Part of Thomas wants to lay down and sleep - most of him just wants to see his boys, right now.

They've been chasing leads all day. They've killed people, hunted people, been hunted, been shot at, had cars crashed into them. They ate a late lunch in a corner diner, Martha chewing her food like she forgot how to do so. Thomas drank two cups of coffee and almost threw up a third. They didn't have dinner, though he learned that some of their company did. They'd sat outside a gas station talking to an attendant while other people ate.

His hands ache, by the time they finally stop moving. His head hurt, his skull feeling a bit too tight for the rest of him. There might have been tremors, in his shoulders, pressed against Martha's, but he honestly can't tell.

They've tracked the last of the rival gang to a small drug-den near the park. Their driver pulls up not far away - yet Martha sits in the car for longer than he would have assumed.

"Something's off." She whispered, after a moment. "This is too quiet."

* * *

It doesn't take long to sort through the nondescript buildings, find the one they're looking for. Their driver drags the woman behind them, Selina scouting ahead, Tommy leaning ever-so-slightly against Bruce's shoulder.

Jay is shivering with some primal anticipation. Tommy can feel it too, the hot currents whispering against the afternoon air, saying something will happen in a language only they seem able to hear.

The boy is starting to frighten him a bit. He'd introduced himself as Jude to their driver, wheezed light giggles when Bruce had resewn the twisted scars around his mouth. Selina had gone to slap his shoulder at one point, only to withdraw her hand too quickly, as teeth had snapped shut too close to her fingers. At one point, they'd been checking out a run-down restaurant, and Jay had almost ripped into a young man that had yelled at him.

The boy made him nervous. Fortunately, they were a little bit on the same side, at least when it came to Bruce, and that helped.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Or in this case - the ally of my ally is my friend.

The building they were looking for was clearly the more rundown of an otherwise okay-looking neighborhood. It wasn't even that far from the park - if Tommy looked between a laundromat and an Asian market across the street, he could see the trees.

It was probably not the most hidden of hideouts. Then again, Bruce had managed to escape from the sister hideout without being seen, so he doubted being hidden was something they were good at.

Selina seemed to be casing the joint as they waited. The woman they'd dragged along was being eyed by Jay - the sort of eyeing that made Tommy sweat just being in the same area. She seemed to get the message.

A moment later, Selina slides forward, her gaze on some invisible point. Jay follows quickly enough - a dashing glance to Bruce to see if it was okay to go after her first - then Bruce was following close behind, and Tommy followed him, confident that even if he didn't entirely know what they were about to do, he would always have his brother's back.

* * *

Bruce's world had narrowed down to a pinpoint. It was easy enough to slip into the building - and there weren't that many people there once they were in.

Selina melted into the shadows like they were an old friend. He waited, one calm hand tucking Jay into his side, and the other finding Tommy, poised and ready just behind him. If their driver and hostage had come through as well, they weren't in his line of vision. He sucked in one clear breath of air - tasting stale cigarette smoke and the smells of the misfortunate. Tommy let out a deep breath through his nose to mirror him. Jay huffed, a silent laughter.

Selina slid back into view, holding up seven fingers. She met his eyes for only a moment - some small question in her gaze - are they going ahead with this?

He points Tommy forward, a silent signal telling him to aim for the first, that Selina gestures is just around the corner. There's a moment of hesitation - from Bruce, dare he ask this? - but Tommy does not falter. His knife is in his hand, and he disappears around the corner before Bruce can do anything.

Jay's nails dig into his arm. When he turns, acid green eyes are staring at him in pure delight, asking, begging, pleading.

He doesn't know if Jay's ever killed before. He doesn't know if he wants to give that order. Selina steps back a bit, as if to say leave me out of this.

There's a muffled yelp from around the corner, and Jay almost leaps forward, dances on the spot, desperate, and Bruce finds himself nodding too fast to second-guess himself. Then Jay is gone, around the corner, and Bruce follows (because he feels bare, without a larger shadow to his back).

Tommy has the first one speared through the ribs, is actively pulling the blade from his chest as Bruce rounds the corner. Jay's teeth are literally buried in the man's throat, eating his screams as his weight brings him down to the floor.

The grin he flashes Bruce is borderline manic, teeth stained with blood-

(There's a flicker, for a moment, at the edge of his mind. Of a memory of a brother that was almost taken from him, standing beside an ambulance outside a hospital, giving his baby brother one of his rare promises, with an even rarer smile. Blood-stained teeth. Death on his breath.)

They move to the next one. Catch one woman turning a corner unexpectedly, Jay locking his thin arms around her throat before Tommy brings her down with two quick jabs. A fourth doesn't even wake from his slumber, sleeping off drugs, and a fifth takes three of them to take out, Bruce placing his hands on his chest and holding him still while Tommy drains him from the throat.

It's a strange thing, feeling someone's heartbeat stutter against his palms while they die. He can see why people like it. He can see why his brother probably enjoys this. Ultimate power, ultimate knowledge.

The light fades from the firth's eyes.

(It is glorious.)

The sixth is unexpectedly taken out by the driver, which just leaves the seventh. Part of Bruce itches - he wants to try this. He wants to ask Tommy to hand over the knife so he can try.

He doesn't, however. Jay takes out the last - a woman who manages to scratch up his face a bit - all by himself. It leaves them standing in what looks like a large living room - a television in one corner, a couple of sagging couches that smell suspicious.

There's Selina, Jay, Tommy, the unnamed driver and the woman who betrayed them. And him. The rest are dead. In this building anyway.

There's a beeping sound somewhere behind him. A quick glance over his shoulder shows Selina with her finger on a button of a rather expensive looking answering machine. A moment later, a message plays - addressed to someone called Arnold, who says that the Downtown hideout was completely wiped out by someone named Elenor.

Someone breathes out a sigh of relief. Jay looks… almost sad, for a moment. Perhaps, after getting a taste for killing, he wanted to go back and deal something out on the people who'd taken so much from him.

"I suppose that's it for now." Selina says after a moment. "Just clean-up and making sure nobody can trace this back to us, I guess?"

"There's still the trouble with the mafia." Tommy added. There's a bit of a breathless tone to his voice. We'll have to deal with that sooner or later."

"That's not all." Bruce caught the eye of the kneeling woman they'd brought with them, still looking uncertain to her fate. "You're still here." He addresses the last part to her.

It's obvious that she's seen everything that's just happened - she's well aware that the knife Tommy wields is more than enough to make things very difficult very quickly.

"Please." There's a tremor to her voice. "Please, I'll do anything."

"You can go." Bruce stared, waving a hand at the driver. "Take the car, and leave. This is between us."

"Are you sure?" It took a moment for the older man to leave, but eventually, he relented, and Selina followed him out to make sure he was gone. Jay and Tommy flanked the woman on either side.

"He's gone." A moment later, Selina was sliding back into the room. "He drove fast, I don't think he's coming back."

Bruce nodded once, then turned to the woman, fixing her with a sharp gaze that spoke of generations of Waynes, generations of power and the knowledge to go with it.

"You betrayed us." Bruce's voice was steady. "You gave them everything they needed to know. Maybe you were the one that fed them where to find my brother and I so we could be attacked in the first place. Maybe you've been feeding them things for months."

"I swear, I'll tell you anything-"

"I don't care." Bruce took a step closer. "You have lied, and you have not been loyal. You have failed us, and by extension, you have failed Gotham."

He touched a gentle hand to her forehead, not even a spot of blood on his hands. "My name is Bruce Anthony Wayne. My father is Thomas Wayne. My grandmother was Angelina Wayne, my great-grandmother was Lilliana Wayne, and I am the youngest of three hundred years of Waynes."

His eyes were alight with something hot and burning as he met her breathless gaze. "My sole duty is to Gotham, and it's betterment. And you are not welcome."

Tommy's hand tightened on her shoulder. There was a rumbling purr that could have been a laugh in Jay's chest.

"By my birthright, by every one of my ancestors, I sentence you to die, for your crimes against this city, and its family. Give me the knife, Tommy."

"What?" His brother hissed at the same time the woman sobbed a "no".

"The knife, Tommy."

His brother hesitated for only a moment, before wiping the blood off on his sleeve, and handing over the blade, handle first.

"Please, please, no." She looked like she was considering running - but the rabid look in Jay's eyes stays her.

"I'll make this quick." Bruce promises, softness and kindness in his tone, even now. And he drives the knife through her throat and into her spinal cord.

* * *

Someone with a gun in their hand kicks down the door. Martha's not far behind, her own weapon in her hand, and Thomas goes with her (because he wants to see what she does) because he has a gut feeling.

They find the first person not far in, bled out from the throat. Someone nudges the corpse with their foot - because obviously, that's a good indicator that someone's dead. But the body's been there for hours, by the looks of things.

The second body, and a third, is found not long after that, and before they can find the rest, someone shouts from down the hall.

The air just doesn't go into his lungs when he steps into the room. He can hear the breath Martha lets out beside him as well.

It's their sons.

Bruce and Tommy, looking tired, so tired, Tommy's bandages dirty and his hands bloody. There's a girl he vaguely recognizes with them, and a boy he does not. There's a dead woman laid out not far from where they're sitting on the couch, watching the television.

Both boys are on their feet in a second, love and desperation and all that childish longing on their faces. Martha makes a noise that could've been a sob, and rushed forward, arms wide.

He's slower to move, which is why he sees both of them lean towards her, and yet Martha's arms fall onto Bruce, dragging the younger son to her chest with a choked "I was so worried."

For a moment, there is unimaginable pain on Tommy's face, before it shuts down into blankness, and then Thomas is there, wrapping their eldest in his arms and unleashing a wave of are you alright and how much pain are you in while his hands try to check all his bandages at once.

It doesn't work entirely, but he can feel his son sag down in relief, that at least here, he is safe.

Martha is the first to pull away, holding Bruce at arms length, her hands cupping his face. "Hh-how? What happened to everyone here?"

Bruce opens his mouth - Thomas sees the smallest flicker of fear there - and Tommy interrupts.

"It was me." He's quiet, but sure, so sure, and Thomas can hear the truth in his voice and see it in the lines of his stiff shoulder. "I cc-cleared the building, so Bruce would be safe. I killed everyone."

"Tom-" Bruce's whisper is so small Thomas almost doesn't hear it, and he doesn't even think Martha hears it, from the way she's looking at Tommy with an unreadable expression.

"All of them." He adds, confirms. "I-I am sorry."

His hands still have smears of blood on them, Thomas sees it when Martha pulls them apart, holds her son's wrist at arm's length to check the evidence.

They locked eyes for a long time, staring each other down. At last, Martha spoke.

"You put your brother in danger, coming here."

"I know, I'm sorry."

"You were suppose to protect him, not endanger him."

"I'm sorry." The whisper was even quieter than the first.

She focused on Tommy for a second longer, then turned, no more words, not even a touch for her oldest son.

Tommy's shoulders fell down, and Bruce was there a moment later, drawing his brother into a hug. Thomas thought he might have whispered something into his ear, but he couldn't hear.

"I'm going to go home." The girl said, after a moment. "See you later, Anthony." And she was gone, before anyone could offer a ride.

The nameless boy behind Bruce squirmed briefly, stepping closer to Bruce, eyes bright.

(There was something unsettling there - Thomas couldn't name what, but he didn't like it.)

"Who's this?" He asked, trying to figure out what had gone on over the past day or two - though he assumed by now that he'd probably never know, by the looks of things.

"Jordan." The boy introduced, quickly, without thought, then looked uncertain, like he should have said something else.

"He's with me." Bruce's voice left no room for argument. "He helped me escape, I own him a lot."

The boy practically preened at Bruce's praise.

"Well, I guess he can come along then." Thomas said, the tiredness beginning to creep into his voice. "We'll figure this all out later. Let's go home."

* * *

It was the early morning when Gordon got to the last crime scene. There was already investigators swiping down tables and doorknobs, a team carrying out bodies on stretchers, white sheets over their faces.

"Gang activity." Said the cop in charge. "Pretty open and shut."

"We should investigate." Gordon said, hope in his voice.

The cop snorted. "Like I said, open and shut. Go home, Gordon. It's just a gang."

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** ... Aaaannndd that's the end of part 1. Stay tuned for **Part 2: Scars Of Tomorrow**, premiering August 15th. Check out my blog, Alexfics on Tumblr, for updates and new stuff.

If you have any headcanons, gender/sexuality theories, scenes you'd like to see, tell me and I'll see what I can do.


	8. PART 2:1 : Scars Of Tomorrow

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **And here we go - Part 2 of AIIWPTS. A little later in the day, and I didn't get as far ahead in my writing as I wanted, mostly due to extremely strange sleep patterns, but let's begin this anyway.

A shorter chapter then I intended it to be, but this is really just setting the tone for the next chapter. As a heads up to anyone who is wondering - the few years gap that takes place will probably be filled later with some one-shots or something. I didn't want to spend ages dawdling on it when we can get to more exciting things.

Check out my fic blog on Tumblr at alexfics.

* * *

"Look, honestly, I think you overreacted a bit."

The corpse, being quiet dead at this point, did not respond.

"I get it, I really do! You were under a lot of pressure…" A whimsical gesture is made towards the face-splitting smile almost severing the rest of the head from the jaw with the still bloody knife. "Some things were said in anger… You _might_ have called me a fag, which I very humbly protest. I _might_ have suggested your mother should have swallowed. But _seriously_, there are bigger things here then you _screamin' like a little girl-_"

"What the _hell_."

The voice of Mother-of-Bruce shattered the private illusion of post-death discussions with corpses. In fact, the boy - _Jay, _he reminded himself, because it was still hard to remember that name sometimes, out of all the others - jumped almost a foot into the air, scrambling away from the dead body and clutching his knife - _Brother-to-Bruce's knife, oops, gotta put that back_ - against his chest in shock.

It wasn't that he was necessarily _scared_ of the woman who was mother-to-Bruce, mother-to-brother-to-Bruce, husband-to-father-of-Bruce-and-brother-to-Bruce, boss of the gang, who fed Bruce, who, in turn, fed him. There wasn't much scary about Martha - or was it Eleanor? It was so hard to _remember_ sometimes - except for that fact that unlike Bruce, who wore masks like jackets, or his brother, in his ill-fitted person-suit that wasn't really _human_, Mother-of-Bruce had _faces_.

She'd twist her skin into terrifying shapes - hatred and anger and disgust - without ever changing who she was. Only the weak did that. _Bruce_ didn't do that. When Bruce was angry, he put on a mask - a little version of him that was maybe-made-up-less-than-the-rest - that was angry. When he wasn't angry anymore, he put on a different mask.

Jay was not fond of masks - it made it very, very difficult to spot the real Bruce, hiding underneath. He really did want to see the _real_ Bruce, even if it was all ugly from never seeing the light.

Likewise, Brother-to-Bruce (Tommy, Giddy-Gideon, _Junior_) did not show who he truly was either. Though, admittedly, Tom-Brother-Tommy wasn't as good as Bruce at hiding all the changes. Jay didn't blame him though, Brother-to-Bruce's person suit did not fit him right, and it made it very difficult for _Tommy_ to move around and twist his skin into the right shapes when someone asked him to smile.

But for all his hatred of Bruce's masks, or the brother's person suit or Father-of-Bruce's pretending or any of the other methods to hiding-one's-true-self that strong-smart-not_weak_ people used, none matched his hatred (and admittedly, slight terror) for Elley-Marth's _complete lack of respect for the system._

_Everyone_ hid themselves. Even _he_ hid, behind knifes and smiles and the clothes Bruce bought him, binding contagious, dangerous laughter into his chest with cloth and stitches. Mother-of-Bruce did not, however, and her faces were terrifying, all truth and ugly rage without cover.

She also didn't like Jay very much. Jay didn't entirely blame her. Nobody really liked him very much.

"Did you _kill one of my accountants_?"

Hmm. Come to think of, he might have. Jay eyed the corpse again. What was left of the man's face looked _vaguely_ familiar, in the sense that he remembered that Friend-to-Cats-Friend-to-Bruce-Kitten-Crazy-_Selina_ had previously owned the particular animal that she was talking about, and that it wasn't new. He was getting better at remembering all the pussy faces. Bruce was very proud.

"Er." He said, because history had shown that Mother-of-Bruce did not like laughter, sunshine or fun. Especially not fun, and _especially_ not laughter. This meant No Jokes, with capitals. It was one of Bruce's favourite lessons, and Jay's least favourite of them all. "I can't really remember… _Per_ _se_."

Martha-Mother's face went from angry to very-angry. It had taken time to learn that these were different faces. He could only really tell them apart because one was for when she was just likely to be angry and maybe yell at him a little bit, and the other one was only used when she was about to _really_ yell at him, or yell at Bruce for something he did.

(Which wasn't fair, and was honestly _the worst_. Why did Mother-of-Bruce yell at Bruce for Bruce's Jay's mistakes? Very rude, very unprofessional.)

"_Anthony!_"

Apparently, it was going to be option two. Jay flinched at the noise. This was not how he intended his gift to be presented.

Soon enough, Bruce-who-was-sometimes-Anthony rounded the corner, looking a bit tired, and trailing Tom-Brother-_Tommy_ behind him, as he was wont to do.

Jay put on his best innocence grin, which Cat-Selina had informed him was incredibly terrifying and vaguely satanic in nature. Bruce, however, being Bruce, understood Jay-Smiles, which were quite similar to Bruce-Masks, and knew that Jay did not intend to eat anyone, even if you could count all his teeth.

Tommy-Brother, on the other hand, does looks ravenous. There's a hungry look on his face, one that Jay sort of recognized.

(Tommy gets that look around dead people a lot. It worries Bruce, but neither of them have mentioned it. He thinks it might be a brother thing, or maybe a teenager thing. Or it might be a Bruce-Tommy thing. He doesn't hang out around a lot of other kids his age, so he can't say.)

Thirteen-year-old Bruce is an angel to Jay's eyes. It doesn't matter that Jay had slept curled into the warmth of Bruce's side, and had stroked the side of his face before getting up, nodding to Tommy, who slept on the other side of Bruce - damn what people said about brothers sharing a bed - and always seemed to be awake before Jay woke up, which was _insane_. Jay didn't believe in sleep, sleep was _for the weak_. He crashed when Bruce's side looked inviting enough, when his eyelids were too heavy, when his fingers began to shake. Still the brother was always awake before him, like the slightest movement might have implied a threat. And it didn't matter that he'd only just seen Bruce - seeing him again was like coming home after a year.

"Mmm'mornin', Brucie." He purred, waggled his fingers in greeting. He nodded in morning-greeting to One-Eyed-Brother-Tom, who nodded back, in their usual ritual of _Hey, we both like Bruce. Bruce is cool. Bruce is fine today. Good work._

Bruce did not smile, because his mother was standing there, and there was a dead body in the hallway. In fact, he carefully slotted one of his most weathered masks into place, one that Jay had seen very often over the last few years.

Jay liked to call this mask _Goddamnit Jay_. Bruce pulled this mask out whenever Jay had done something that Bruce did not necessarily approve of - or worse, that Bruce _did_ approve of, but could not vocally approve of, most likely because a Parent-of-Bruce was present to disapprove of Jay's actions.

Bruce used the _Goddamnit Jay_ mask a lot around dead bodies. Mostly because Jay put them there, and Mother-of-Bruce had a habit of blaming Brother-of-Bruce, regardless of whether or not Tommy-Tom-Tom had anything to do with said dead body.

Which he sometimes did.

"Anthony, what have I told you about _leashing your dog_."

Anthony-Bruce put on his _Sorry Mother_ mask, which mostly involved standing very still, eyes averted, hands grasped behind his back. The image of _submission_.

Jay really hated that mask.

"I apologize, mother." Bruce's voice was smooth, deeper now than it had been when Jay had stumbled into his life. "I was unaware he was gone."

Mother-of-Bruce sighed, rubbing a hand across her face like this whole event had exhausted her. "I have a contact coming within the hour, Anthony, _clean this up_." And she walked away, heels clicking against the hotel floor.

Tommy-Brother looked a little sad. Jay didn't really blame him, Brother-of-Bruce looked sad a lot, and he looked particularly sad today. He stood behind Bruce - he was always standing behind Bruce - with his hands in his pockets, broad shoulders hunched, scars on display. His right eye - a few shades darker blue then Bruce's - met Jay's with a curious expression. His left didn't move more than a twitch or two, the lighter blue orb that had been placed in the empty socket not really responding to half-dead tissue.

Quite frankly, that was Jay's favourite's eye. The scar that decorated the left side of Brucie's brother's face started at his hairline, parting his eyebrow, splitting the eyelid right in two, digging a twisted scar along his cheekbone, and finally ending in a tiny nick that pulled at his upper lip. There were plenty of other scars to go with it - a bunch of light spots that were barely there, nestled in among his freckles from falling off a rusty fire escape, some long slices on the side of his nose from a dog bite. One long, thin line down the other side of his face from a fight with some older boys, and a fresh bruise, swelling the cheek under his good eye from only a day or two ago.

Tommy-Tom's scars were almost as amazing as his. Almost, of course. Tom-Brother's scars had been cleaned and cared for by Father-of-Bruce-and-Brother-of-Bruce. Jay's had been _handstitched_ by Bruce, wiped clean over a sink by Bruce. Bruce had finished the brushstrokes of Jay's unfinished painting; his artificial smile, his greatest scars.

"Jay." Bruce's face said he might have said that at least once or twice, and he'd yet to respond.

"Er, yeah." Jay licked a quick tongue over some of scar tissue that overlapped his lip. "Repeat that last thing."

"Jay." Bruce gave him the _Goddamnit Jay_ eyebrows combined with his _For Fuck's Sake_ grimace. "What have I _said_ about killing our people."

"Hmm." It was difficult to arrange his thoughts to remember that far back. "Merry Christmas to you?"

"It's _April_. April, Jay."

Brother-Tommy muttered something under his breath.

"_Sorry_, my hearin's a little hard on the left side." Jay drawled. "What was that?"

Tom-Tom cleared his throat a bit. "A bit closer to a belated birthday."

"Hah!" He cackled, clutching his chest in a sudden fit of laughter. "Sorry, Brucie. Late birthday gift it is."

"A gift." Bruce repeated this - as if it needed clarification! Jay had left plenty of gifts before. "How exactly, does a disfigured corpse count as a gift?"

"Heh." Jay giggled a bit. "It was… you know I was talking to _Pussy-cat _the other day…"

"Dear God." Bruce breathed in half-feigned horror. "Please tell me Selina wasn't talking about _cats_ _leaving dead animals for their owners._"

Jay hummed wordlessly, grinning and showing a couple of teeth in playfulness.

Tommy-Tom quirked the scarred side of his mouth in something that could have been considered a smile, in some alternate universe where people used terror to communicate amusement.

Bruce stepped forward, a bit of a soft expression on his face, one of the kinder masks that he had.

"What'd he say." Bruce had a way of worming his way through Jay's actions to unravel their true purposes. "You know I don't care."

"Yeah, yeah." It seemed _stupid_ now that Bruce had gotten in trouble for it. "He just… _suggested_ some stuff and said some mean things, about… you, and you know I can't _stand that!_" He nudged the corpse a bit with worn shoes. "Sorry."

He was shit at sorry, and he knew it. He'd never found a smile or a laugh for sorry that didn't make Bruce upset, which was why he left the _bodies_, because honestly, what was better than knowing those spoke against you were silenced forever?

Bruce just sighed a bit. "We'll talk about this later, just… help me get rid of the body."

* * *

There was nothing more beautiful than the city, spread out in the morning like the nerve system of something far more powerful than any one human being. Every road was a vein, circling cars and people through the city like blood through a heart. From the roof of the hotel, Gotham felt alive, something that thrived and faltered within Bruce's field of vision.

Tommy was enjoying the sun, leaning back on an old couch that had been brought up at some point a while ago. His eyes were half-lidded, though Bruce had no doubt that he was still aware, ever watchful to some extent.

Jay was laying on the concrete, one arm folded under his head, the other flung across the ground, eyes closed. He seemed to be soaking up the sun like a particularly satisfied dog, content just to lie there. He was only inches from Bruce's shoe, close enough that if he bent down, he could press a hand into the blond half-curls that threatened to overgrow Jay's head like an uncared-for garden.

He was tempted to. Jay had surpassed every expectation Bruce had put before him, conformed nicely, even if he hadn't always been aware of how Bruce had been molding him, slowly but surely over the last few years. And it was hard to admit, but he'd started to grow a soft spot for his favourite rescue, and his hopelessly loving face, scarred as it was.

It was easy to spot the contact, a slightly beat-up car that rumbled into the hotel's parking lot twenty-three minutes late to his mother's meeting. The man that got out looked worn-down around the edges, like crumbled paper, even from the rooftops. Bruce leaned forward, resting one forearm on the roof's edge.

It was a bit of a surprise when someone else got out of the car as well.

It was a bit hard to tell - understandably, the person looked tall, if not that old - but he was almost certain it was a teenager, or a kid. Who brought a kid - their own child? - to a meeting with a _gang boss_?

Jay was making wheezing noises through his nose, which meant the slacker had probably dozed off by now, unlike Tommy, who'd somehow sensed some miniscule change in the air, and was eyeing Bruce in preparation to move.

"Wake up." He rubbed a hand across Jay's brow - not flinching, even as the boy jumped beneath his palm, and snapped his teeth in that instinctive biting response he had. Jay had bitten him a few times before, once or twice without realizing it, but Bruce had yet to bring himself to be scared of him. And the groveling had been nice, afterwards.

"Wasn't sleepin'." He murmured at Bruce, smiled a bit sheepishly. "We going somewhere?"

"I think I'll attend mother's meeting after all." He said, beckoning at Tommy, who rose from his perch with only the slightest stiffening of his muscles.

He wanted to meet the type of man that would bring a child to this sort of place.

He had the horrible feeling that he'd get along great with mother.

* * *

Christopher Dent was a drunk, and it was very, very obvious. The only reason Martha didn't immediately have him dragged right out of the building was because of the many things that she did have, a lawyer in her pockets was not one of them.

He at least had the decency to attend their meeting sober, though he was almost a half-hour later. She met him in the restaurant, which was bustling with patrons and almost entirely filled. She was dressed entirely in black and grey, every ink-coloured strand of hair pinned perfectly in place, her makeup impeccable. Before her was her books, laid out in clean alignment.

Dent managed to get on her nerves long before he started speaking. At least two of her staff gave him looks before he was fully in the room - something that was clearly revealed a moment later when a young teenager followed him in, looking very uncomfortable to be there. Then he bumped into a table, seating an off-duty nurse that worked for her husband, and one of the counterfeiters that worked for her. When he pulled back the chair across from her, he even managed to scrape it across the floor, echoing a loud crating sound through the now mostly silent room.

If he noticed everyone looking at him, he didn't say anything. The boy who was presumably his son didn't join them at the table, instead taking a seat at an empty booth nearby - by sheer accident, the table that was designated Bruce's, and by extension, Tommy's and the other boy's - and continued to look uncomfortable.

"Hey, ah- Eleanor, right?" He had a sleazy grin, the sort that made her skin crawled.

"Boss." She emphasized, because _late people didn't get slack_. "Boss Eleanor."

"... Right." Christopher's leg began to jump a bit. "Look, I heard… from Larry, you know Larry, right? He said… you might… _help me out_ every now and again, that I might… do the same?"

She noticed the son bow his head a little, like he knew what this was about, and didn't like it one bit.

"You want me to pay you, to what- throw trials? Give me information?" He twitched a little as she spoke. Guilty conscious, that might not help.

On the other side of the room, a shadow moved into the room, Bruce peeling himself apart from the wallpaper a moment later. His brother wasn't much further behind, always just a few steps from Bruce's heels, and behind him, tongue licking his lips in that _confounded_ tick, was the little _dog_ he insisted on bringing around.

Even across the room, the boy gave her chills. There was few things in Gotham that truly unnerved her, but he was one of them.

Nobody that young should enjoy killing.

(Even if her own son did as well.)

"I really think this could be a partnership that would benefit us both." Dent leaned forward in a way that suggested he was about to launch into a sales pitch.

And she settled down to listen.

* * *

Luck was on his side - the boy that had come with mother's contact was sitting at his table. Bruce took in as much as he could as he made his way around the edge of the room, most of the people there not even noticing he was going by, though his brother and Jay were much more easily spotted. They didn't have his talent for stealth.

The boy was much more of a youth, perhaps a year or two older then Tommy. He had the same jawline and steady stare as the man sitting across from his mother (most _definitely _his son), even the same jitter rattling around inside his chest.

Though it wasn't true nervousness - more of a steady uncomfortableness. He wasn't _scared_ to be there, he just didn't want to be.

Bruce picked out the traces of _kindness_, withering like plants without water in the dusty closets of his mind, the edges of _pain_, raw like bruises. _Real_ bruises, almost hidden in shadows beneath shirt collar and hem. Morals, stacked like boxes offloaded from a truck, yet to be sorted and used.

The faintest hints of _fairness_, something cool and smooth, evenly distributed like a well-balanced weight and hidden in the bends of his fingers and the corner of his flickering eyes.

He looked up a moment before Bruce sat down (didn't meet his eyes checked how many of them there was before picking out the finer details shifted in his seat but didn't get up). He saw an instant submissiveness the moment he looked at Bruce (good, he knew how to pick out a leader), uncertainty at Tommy (understandable, Tommy was confusing to a lot of people) and… _curiosity_, as his eyes landed on Jay.

No fear, no _disgust_, no repulsive desire to instantly _hate_, as people were wont to do with Jay. He was _curious_. He was intrigued at the strange boy who barely _moved_ like he was human.

Bruce decided instantly that he wanted this boy.

The youth shifted a bit as he settled down in the side of the booth next to him, trapping him against the wall. He eyed Tommy (noting the more dangerous of the two predators, _good_) and shifted his arm between him and Jay (able to tell apart which one was more likely to lash out, this was just getting better and better).

"I'm sitting in your spot, aren't I." The boy spoke to Bruce, though he kept one eye on Tommy. "I can move."

It was tempting to establish he wasn't a threat - he did that with most of the people he did favours with - but he had the distinct impression that the boy wouldn't believe him.

"What's your name?" Better to get more information first - Bruce could tell if someone was a liar, a murderer or as innocent as anyone in this city got just by looking, but pesky things like _names_ and ages and other such things had to be obtained verbally and manually.

There was no hesitation when he said "Harvey. Harvey Dent." But Jay giggled to himself all the same - and Bruce saw the _flicker_ that said his rescue had picked up on something Bruce had missed.

(It was annoying when that happened, but then again, he didn't keep Jay around because he was _useless_.)

"Anthony." He offered in return, raising a hand to shake. Harvey eyed it for a moment (Bruce didn't blame him for that, he was probably sixteen or seventeen, almost-but-not-quite-an-adult, and Bruce was still losing baby fat at the age of thirteen) but he shook hands all the same, an adult formality in a world where they weren't normally allowed such things.

"This is Gideon." He further introduced, waving in his brother, and then gesturing to the last of his party. "And Jay." Jay giggled again, obviously amused by something. "Ignore him, he does that."

Predictability, Harvey focused on Jay a little more - but Bruce didn't blame him for that either, almost everyone did once Bruce said _ignore him_. He'd have done it too, if he hadn't long since learned to incorporate Jay's noises into his own brand of thinking.

"I suppose that's your father." A small head tilt in the man's direction indicated who he meant, though he did lower his voice a bit.

Harvey swallowed (shifted his sleeve a little, well, _that_ explained the bruises) and nodded. "He's talking to the boss of this gang."

"That's our mother." Bruce clarified, and saw the first hints of fear in Harvey's eyes.

"Your _mum_?" Harvey's eyes darted back and forth, taking in the black hair on both of them, the blue eyes, the same general shapes in their faces. "Your mum is a _gang boss_?"

"Our mother." He gestured to Tommy again.

"You're… brothers." Again, a quick check for family resemblance. "And he's…" A wordless look to Jay.

"Not related." Bruce clarified quickly, wringing another set of laughter from Jay, and a very scandalized look from Tommy.

"Oh." Harvey looked a little relieved at that. "So, he's - you're - a friend?"

"Something like that." Bruce said, one thumb stroking the ledger in his jacket - it _itched_ to be used today. "It's a bit of a long story."

* * *

Harvey and his father don't stay long - in fact, they're gone within the hour, leaving a tiny bit of guilt in Martha's stomach, and a stern look on her youngest son's face.

He finds her in the hallway down to an office she'd finally been forced to take over. He moves so silently that it isn't until he clears his throat that she realizes he's there.

Tommy's nowhere in sight, which is _endlessly_ strange, after so long, but the boy is closer than usual, occupying Tommy's spot behind Bruce's shoulder, eyes flickering around and down.

Bruce just falls into step beside her, like they're _equals_.

(Which they aren't, she's his mother, he has no place in a position of power. How can so many _listen_ to a mere _boy_?)

"You've accepted his offer." Is there the faintest hints of _judgement_ in his tone? She hopes she's imagining it.

"It'll greatly benefit our company." She says, nodding in thanks when he holds the door to her office open. He lets the boy through, and she has the urge to kick him back out - but Bruce never goes anywhere without Tommy (and she'd let him in), and if he's not around, then Bruce will substitute with his loyal follower.

Since she's only seen Tommy away from his brother's side a handful of time, she decides not to push it, and only eyes the boy a little when he settles only a step or two behind his charge - gaze on Bruce, but partially on _her_, as if she'd _do anything_ to her own son.

"You should be careful." He doesn't sit down, remains standing in front of her desk, while she seats herself in the office chair someone had found.

"Dent? He's practically harmless."

"He beats his son."

Then again, Bruce had been sitting with Dent Junior. And Bruce had a horrible habit of being right.

"You have proof?"

"He had bruises."

"Did he say that his father beat him?"

There's a small pause. "... I didn't ask."

"Did he, in conversation, at any point _verbally_ confirm or suggest that Christopher abused him?"

"... No-"

"Anthony, you must stop doing that… _trick _of yours."

"It isn't a trick! I just… _saw_ it. There was lots of hints-"

"It still isn't proof."

The scarred boy twittered, a hiss of highly amused giggles worming their way out of his mouth and sparking every single nerve end Martha had.

"Bruce is _good_, he knows these things." The boy said, purring voice rising up before Bruce could quiet him. "Why, he used to clean the bruises my uncle Louis left _all the time_-"

"For _fuck's sake_." She snapped at him, causing the boy to jump and skid back a foot or two and Bruce to twitch suddenly. "You didn't even _know_ my son then, and _you don't have an uncle._"

The boy opened his mouth to respond, those horrible scars twisting.

"- And furthermore, _Louis_ was the man you _killed this morning_."

Somehow, she'd gotten out of her chair, and was standing only a foot or two away. She saw Bruce close his eyes out of the corner of her gaze, as if he didn't entirely want this to be happening. The boy clicked his jaw shut, starting to chew on the inside of his scar tissue.

"Get him out." She addressed Bruce instead, a vibrating _anger_ setting in her bones.

"I'll go find Tommy-" Bruce's voice was small, and he wasn't quite meeting her eyes, well aware he'd disappointed her.

"Get him out of this building."

Bruce twitched.

"Get him out of my territory."

The boy wilted.

"Get him the fuck out. If I see him again inside of a week, I will have him thrown into the harbour." She hadn't been this angry in a long time, and it certainly came across in her tone, downright _scaring_ Bruce, if the fear in his eyes were anything to go by. "If you're going to keep a dog, train him to _shut up_."

"He's not a dog." Bruce could barely be heard, and the confounded mongrel in question was near-cowering into his side.

"I don't _care_. Get. Him. _Out._ And teach him to mind his betters."

"Jay, apologize." Bruce said suddenly, shuffling the boy in front of him. "He just doesn't think sometimes, mother, I swear-"

The boy opened his mouth to speak, and she slapped him right across the face.

It wasn't hard enough to break skin, but his teeth came down on his own lip, instantly splitting it. She could see the redness of a bruise forming before he'd even properly righted himself, shaking his head a little as if to wave off the pain.

Bruce looked downright horrified. She'd never raised a hand to either of her sons, and neither had her husband. In fact, she'd never really hit _anyone_ before, at least nobody that her sons had seen.

Considering the subject matter just before, hitting Bruce's pet had probably not been the best idea.

"We'll go." Bruce definitely wasn't looking at her now, gaze down and curling in as if - as if she'd hit _him_ next. "I'll make him do better."

And then he and the boy were gone.

It wasn't until she'd sat down again and was looking at the tiny smear of blood on her hand that she realized Bruce had said _we_.

* * *

It was if a loose thread had gotten caught on Martha's fingernail, and the further Jay walked away from her, the more and more the thread began to unravel the careful construction that Bruce had spent the last three years building.

He could actively see him fall apart. It was the first few weeks all over again, when Bruce had to coax Jay from corners and out from under beds when loud noises and strange people had startled him, scared him, made him feel weak and half-made.

How long had Bruce worked to build him up? Taking his smiles and his laughs and binding meaning to them. He'd cleaned Jay's wounds, kept him close when the boy would wake in the night, pupils blown wind in terror, some half-forgotten memory haunting his every breath.

He'd kept his feet on one path, when slowly, but surely, memory had faded to idea, hatred to energy, until the boy that had laid down and taken pain because it was the only thing he knew had vanished.

Until everything had vanished, leaving only teeth and noise, and the knowledge that Bruce had kept him steady, when the rest had died.

And yet, he rested a hand on Jay's arm and _felt_ those truths come tumbling back, mixed up in dreams and lies, until Bruce looked into his face and couldn't see anything but a child who didn't know himself anymore.

Bruce had spent years promising that he would never let another person hurt Jay. And his mother had destroyed it all in seconds. Just wiped it away like it was nothing.

Jay's feet stuttered on the ground, coming to a standstill in the deserted hallway. His head was hung low, and he looked like a puppet with the strings cut. Bruce had never had such a strong desire to pull the boy to his chest and hide him away.

The familiar sound of Tommy's footsteps broke the silence. Bruce looked up in time to see him pause, coat already on, and two more tucked under his arm. There was the messanger bag he often carried these days slung over his shoulder already.

His good eye darted back and forth, taking in Jay's defeated posture and Bruce's no-doubt furious expression.

He didn't say anything. He knew they'd gone to see mother.

"How many knives do you have?" It was easy to tug Jay along, fall into step beside his older brother and just _leave_, out the front door because people were used to him wandering off by now.

"My three best." Tommy responded. "And the one I usually bring." He didn't need to say anything to imply that he'd taken those as a precaution against sticky fingers.

Bruce nodded in silent approval. "Good."

The air outside welcomed him like open-arms. Breathing in brought the smell of the city, of the ocean, of all the people around right into his lungs.

"Let's go to the park." He said. Continuing a routine would be good for Jay. Maybe he could repair what had been damaged before anything irreversible had been done.

* * *

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

Anyone who is worrying that I permanently broke Jay - I didn't. He's a clown, he falls down and he bounces. He'll be fine in a chapter or two.

A couple of people have asked me if they should hate/like Martha, and I have a simple answer, and a not-so-simple one. The simple answer is that Batman can only be born through pain. The not-so-simple answer is that I don't really try to write bad/good guys. None of my characters (two dimensional background people aside) are written with the intent to be villains, or heroes. They inhabit constant grey areas, and that's just how I roll. The simple answer is that Martha's actions further the story, and you can choose to like her, or hate her or think she's a jackass, or a badass, as you can with all the characters. See you next week.


End file.
